Page 28 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 21

Economy

you manage the issue of trans- Afrika on data imagine if you get minerals. So, once there’s this high-
parency, who do you envision something there you can get money; speed railway, because some of the
managing such a fund and roll- we are about to spend 250million on minerals are so heavy you cannot
ing it out? air tickets, we can get taxes there. use the roads to transport them to
As I said, 55 countries will sit to- the sea, they will be able to increase
gether and create the Pan-African For example, Nigeria VAT is 7.5% wealth unbelievably the way we
Infrastructure Fund. It must be an in Europe they are more than 20- see Sweden and other countries in
organization that has enough power 25%, In Kenya 16%, in Rwanda I Europe. These countries will be the
to go out there and create continen- think is 18 in Burundi 17 around richest instead of being the poorest
tal taxes; they will work with the pri- there. It is so low that even if you in the world.
vate sector. There is enough private add 1% it won’t really affect the
sector out there internationally, you economies or lives of our people. These are two things under the
just show them go and collect this That’s the very important thing that integrated high-speed railway, we
money they will collect this money we should know it won’t affect our see our GDP in Afrika growing and
on our behalf. They might not col- people. doubling and it will increase a lot in
lect 100% they will collect for sure The second one is a technical terms of investment in the conti-
80%, we will succeed to get 80% at aspect: how can we collect them nent.
least. These other things are techni- efficiently? There are many ways, the The Grand Inga Dam will have
cal aspects. We have first to agree on only good way is to use the private installed electricity of 40 – 45000
a philosophical aspect: do we need sector and to have a positive mind MW. This is capable of giving each
this fund? That’s the first point, then to know that starting from there we Afrikan (country) 75-700 MW
we go to the aspect of how we can will gradually make it, perfect it and of electricity each so we are able
collect this money efficiently the make sure that corruption is ending; to have stable electricity in each
only way is for the private sector to but we have to start collecting our Afrikan country. 50% of Afrikan
collect that money on our behalf. own finances. countries have got, as we speak
now, less than 500MW of installed
Why do you believe so strongly in I definitely agree with you be- electricity. Like in my country they
them? cause the dependency of this have 200 or 150MW, they are trying
Because they do that in many coun- continent on foreign aid, on their best to have more electricity
tries and it’s easy to do that. And I handouts, on loans from foreign but it is very low. There are many
think we have no choice first, sec- countries, has actually contribut- countries out there in Afrika when
ondly, the fact that people don’t like ed to our imprisonment and it’s investors come, they get electricity
taxes we can call it a contribution, very devastating and we really today tomorrow there’s no electrici-
but we must remember out there, need to break out of it. So, if ty, they will obviously not be able to
there is something called Assessed there is a way to do this, we need industrialize Afrika. So, we have got
Contribution, countries that should to look into it as a priority. So, this Grand Inga Dam which already
contribute to the African Union, do you see these funds as being many studies have been done but
50% of them every year are not allocated specifically to the Inga they never want to finance it.
paying. Let’s start and that question Dam and to the High-Speed
will be on the process to study and Railway and the Africa Standby In 2014 the World Bank accepted to
deal with that. To say, no let’s not do Force or how else do you see finance it because there were many
it because there will be corruption, them being allocated? pressures to do that, they found that
we usually collect taxes even if there There are 10 main projects under it was so important for Afrika to get
is corruption. Also, Afrikan people, Agenda 2063 but this integrated this electricity, then an organization
I am sure they will support that idea. high-speed railway is so important called International River, which is
The taxes that are charged in Eu- because it will connect 55 markets fighting Grand Inga Dam came. In
rope at 50%, no one likes the taxes so that we can be able to interact 2014 they asked the US Congress
but the fact that they are helping and share goods under our trade to vote against the financing of
them somehow, they accept them. agreement. The second point is this Grand Inga Dam by the World
I think the people will accept taxes that 30% of Afrikan countries are Bank. So, they stopped this financ-
and it is not even too much. Imagine landlocked and these countries are ing so the World Bank said it would
we are going to spend 300billion the poorest on earth and yet they finance small projects on solar and
dollars for the next 10-15 years in are the richest countries in terms of other things but this is not enough

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