CONVERSATIONS WITH MAWERE
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- Mutumwa Mawere -
Africa 2008: Whose mineral resources and for whose benefit?
Posted on May 02nd 2008
The fact that Africa is well endowed with mineral resources is not in dispute, but, what seem to be contentious are the role and the share of benefits that should accrue to native Africans in the mining value chain.
The conversation about economic nationalism is not a monopoly of Africans but is a shared concern of mankind.
Many Africans have looked at the state as the vehicle for transformation and yet after 52 years of independence, no African state appears to have significantly altered the inherited ownership structure of the continent's mineral resources.
It is true that minerals in the ground belong to the creator before they are identified by men but who they should belong to be after identification is a contestable issue with no easy answers.
Exploration of minerals requires human and investment capital and it is no secret that Africa is challenged by capital, knowledge and execution gaps to leverage on its resource endowment.
Colonialism was underpinned by access to capital markets by settler capitalists and yet political independence has failed to create its own agenda for capital formation.
The first generation of African capitalists has been to a large extent underpinned by rhetorical nationalism and an under-funded state relying on tax revenues of the former beneficiaries of the colonial state as well as donor support.
The exploitation, processing and beneficiation of minerals call for capital, knowledge and execution capacity.
The post colonial value system and political morality has largely been an extension of the civil rights movement that brought independence without a clear appreciation of what it takes to deliver on the promise of independence.
The conversations that informed the construction phase of the post colonial state were to a large extent premised on creating an alternative economic model without the supporting financial and human architecture.
We are now a free people but acutely conscious that we are collectively freed from the means to be free.
Even the resources in Africa's belly cannot be counted on when Africa's founding fathers appear to have misunderstood the construction of the colonial state that had at its core a capitalist ideology.
Although the colonial state was race-based, it was underpinned by a capitalist protestant ethic with a colonial state playing an enabling role. The engine of the colonial state was located in the individual settler who pursued his/her own interests supported by a colonial and imperial superstructure.
The state relied on the tax revenues derived from economic activities of the settler community and hence the colonial attitude that the state belonged to the people who contributed to it. The rationale for the exclusion of natives from the state was based on the fact that the colonial state was a creation of the settlers and natives had necessarily no interest in it other than selling their time as providers of labour. The colonial business model was supposed to provide residual value to its architects.
Given the historical material relationship between the natives and the colonial state, it is instructive that the founding fathers of post colonial Africa ignored to address the institutional issues necessary for transformation.
Notwithstanding the importance of minerals resources in the transformation of Africa, it is common cause that most of the political parties of Africa are not organised around interests and issues but around personalities.
One would expect to see within African political parties, sub-committees dealing with financial, legal, human, logistics and others issues relevant to mining.
It is not surprising why Cecil Rhodes had to intervene as a politician because he realised that change could not have a life of its own but required the active engagement of those who benefited from it.
Whose minerals are they anyway? What should be the relationship between the natives and God's creation, minerals? Some have argued that Africa belongs to the natives being black people while others have argued that if the continent has to transform, attitudes about citizenship and heritage have to change.
It should ordinarily not matter what colour you are if a market system is in existence underpinned by a democratic state. One of the fundamental principles that underpin a capitalist system is the notion of exchange of value and the role of money in intermediation.
Accepting that gold in the ground has no value unless it has been established and in a form that can be measured and exchanged, it is incumbent upon anyone who believes that the gold in Africa belongs to natives to provide an enabling environment for them to access the resources required to convert the mineral into a form that can be sold.
It must be accepted that part of the proceeds from any economic endeavour must accrue to supply chain providers including the providers of capital.
Without the rule of law and respect for property rights, the prospect for progressive change in Africa is limited. Mineral rights are an asset belonging to the holder and as such it may well be the case that the founder of such rights may not be the same as the holder of the surface rights where the minerals may be situated. In such a case, anyone who wants to access such rights must pay the price otherwise there may be no incentive for anyone engaging in exploration activities.
Even if the mineral resources are established, it still takes a lot to extract them and deliver them to market. The capitalist system has its own rules and in as much as it can be argued that the state can be trusted to deliver value to citizens, I have yet to see a successful civilization premised on the state thinking and producing for citizens.
As one of many Africans who have chosen to be involved in business, I have come to accept that profit is not cash. In fact, being a business owner is the loneliest vocation anyone can wish for. You have the burden of organising the production effort and marshalling resources and yet you are at the basement of the revenue stream.
Workers are superior shareholders in an enterprise for they have a contractual claim on the enterprise unlike owners who have no such legal claim. In fact, workers and the state without providing any risk capital have a preference on the earnings of a company unlike shareholders.
If this is the case, it occurs to me that we ought to think seriously about the rich and poor debates that inform policies targeted at indigenisation in a vacuum of a serious ideological debate about what kind of Africa we want to see.
Some have rhetorically maintained that land is the economy and the economy is the land failing to acknowledge that some of the progressive nations of the world are island states with limited or no natural resources at their disposal. Converting land into cash requires a business model and we must accept that many Africans are found wanting in conceptualising a model that can leverage the majority out of poverty.
Surely, if natives want to control their resources, financial literacy must be the starting point and not any populist rhetoric. We must accept that there are no rights without obligations.
It would be foolhardy to expect your enemy to invest in your progress. If a worker wants to be a capitalist then he/she must subordinate his interests to the company including the right to income.
Even those who are critical of capitalists must accept that economic progress cannot be an accident of history but a result of the efforts of determined individuals who like any general must fight the battle before committing soldiers to fight.
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Thank you One Soul Zimbabwe - you are great man. Be blessed!
One soul your thinking is totally misguided,one wonders were you grow up and in which world you are currently living.This is sadly a typical example of miseducation
This is a world of globalisation and is not fact that only black race is supposed to be in Africa.
What can be said of the black race in America then for example?
While you are busy chanting your racist rhetoric, others,in unity, are busy plotting ways of talking over this world economically.
You are advised to wake up and smell the coffee
Well presented BetterZim. I am fascinated by three points; racism, miseducation and globalisation. Racism can be determined in biological, social and political categories. BIOLOGICALLY, I am awestruck by the Indian race, man that coffee-like skin is a wonder of creation to me. I am glad God made me black and beautiful so as to enjoy comparison with other races. SOCIALLY, I am captivated by the Arabian communities; their profound cultural expertise is scientifically complex and well premeditated for better humanity. It is the Arabian science of human cleanliness and socio-interactive precincts that are gender sensitive which humbles man before creation. The Arabians’ long unperturbed history of civilization places their race at the fore of wisdom in global humanities. My socio-biological affinity to races is a matter of personal interest and does not determine global economics between the “haves” and the marginalized “not-haves”. POLITICALLY, the world is skewed economically by racial dominance because of the historical realities of regional/continental appropriations. For a better Zim and Africa, BetterZim must understand that the marginalized black populace did not come by accident but that it was a well orchestrated long colonial schema of disenchanting the black race by the European white folk for economic purposes. The barbaric continental scramble for control of resources and the natives by white Europe also happened in all other continents of Asia and America. Due to control of natives and resources through colonial, neocolonial and proxy governments and multinational enterprises the marginalized races of the darker south are extremely poor and yet to experience absolute independence from white north when they will determine their god given destiny as industrialised regional economic entities. Radical inhuman slavery of 500 years and today’s white collar slavery witness the mobility inflow of darker races in the white north’s racially slanted establishments. As people at work we’re in constant transit in all continents in search for better returns of man-hours’ labour but the control of global economies has a direct impact on the lives of natives in each region. Real capital is not in Wall Street and London stock exchange but in the land and resources of each region. Black Americans are yet to fully achieve parallel economic status with their white folk though they are one of the oldest races to be in North America after Red Indians and Caucasians. Why are African Americans less wealthy than the Whites, Jews and Japanese in America if all is well? Maybe BetterZim is waiting to enthrone a black African, Arabian or Chinese Queen of England, Mhofu King of Spain in his globalisation dream. It never sounded weird to have a white government in Africa! My good BetterZim if you may advise me of who is plotting ways of taking over this world economically then I will work up and smell the coffee. Africa must assert itself on the global economy by jealously guarding and trading its land and mineral resources. It is far better to slow down the exploitation of African mineral resources and land tenure than to feed the insatiable global economic empires at the expense of land degradation and toxic chemical exposure to the natives.
Mutumwa Dziva Mawere (born January 11, 1960 in Bindura, Zimbabwe), is an African business executive, pioneer, financier, banker and entrepreneur best known as the founder and Chairman of Africa Resources Limited ("ARL"). He is known for having built one of the most powerful and influential corporations in Zimbabwe's history
The rationale here articulated is profoundly Pan African as it sadly laments that after 52 years of state independence the ownership structure of mineral resources is still under foreign white domination. Take an absolute thought that; we are God created subjects and from time immemorial Africa had known the black race as its human incumbents, thus Africa is for Africans; mineral extraction is directly related to land degradation therefore resources in africa can only influence the african environment placing all activities in africa under african ownership regardless of the nature of investment capital. We believe the creator gave all humankind an enabling mind and environment to positively evolve in their regions of creation, if the creator wanted Europeans to progress from African resources logic has it that Europeans should have therefore been made Africans. Creation is inexplicably a miracle, human interactions in diverse regional environments have been provided with the tools for their particular advancement be it economic intellect, land tenure, natural gases, minerals, science development and so forth. It is therefore incumbent upon natives of every region to identify natural provisions from their God Giver ‘Jaira”. Land economics and mineral resources are the only provisions that will make Africa a developed continent as an economic powerhouse. Africa is an uncontestable owner of all African land and resources and must improve its living standards by employing an aggressive protectionist capitalist enterprise. Our weakness in global development is anchored in our too considerate humanism idiosyncrasy, Africans think they have obligations to be good to the world that does it wrong. Having been aggressed militarily and economically we still find ourselves attempting to show human face to our enemies, bringing back their humanity on the expense of native common man, we are busy trying to teach an unrepentant world democratic tendencies of living on the detriment of our economic standards. I am impressed when former communist Soviet Russia cut all gas supplies to its European cousins causing untold suffering and death of children in hospitals for the refusal of same Europe to embrace new tariffs of Russian gas. Why must Africa not close all international mineral mining for refusal of embracing African demands on 51% ownership, environmental policies implementations and high taxes for nation building? Why must Africa not demand to sell all its mineral resources to the outside world? Why must Africa not take land and give it to its marginalized natives? We are so embroiled in the western capitalist economic equations that will not extricate us to be leaders of our destiny. We must not ask to compete for mining rights with multinational businesses but we must take up all mining and land, period. We already know how to develop from experiences of colonialism. Native Africans must institute protectionist reverse colonial states with a capitalist ideology that plays an enabling role. Africa must have race-based nations that exclude non-natives from being stakeholders of our economies; foreigners must not have interest in the states other than selling their time as providers of labour and machinery. Since the struggles for independence the betrayer of an African dream has been an African who first thinks that nothing is doable by Africans. Native individuals and group of indigenous businesses must be propelled through funding by their states in all national projects that emphasize the exploitation of land and resources. African states must also come up with business leadership codes of conduct that tie native business executives from exploiting their nations through under-hand dealings with foreign interests. Most businesses in Africa that have been established through the blessings of indigenization turned to be arch-enemies of the state for the powers of businesses after profits were never cajoled to benefit the state. Native African business executives will rather think of establishing fashionable enterprises all world wide with the resources of their poor nations as naturally they become economically bigger than their states. It is these African big businesses who will fight their governments that initially enabled them to be big, from the side of the economic enemy enterprise. I am humbled by the late Tiny Roland who tirelessly established links assisting the founding liberators for independence for he knew and respected the places that made him wealthy. Why will then Africans made wealthy by liberation governments take it upon themselves to destroy that liberation spirit that was to help empower more natives like them in future? Unlike businesses under settler colonialism, most indigenous businesses would not invest in health, education and the uplift of their communities unless they are Christian based companies. It really takes an African to destroy an African. Having asserted our rights as true custodians of our land, resources and the future, we are still to be capable of installing political leadership that is Pro and Pan African. If Africa is to continue with the Chiluba of Zambia, Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe and many others who are mere proxies of the economic enemy we want to destroy in Africa then we are on a long journey to be triumphant. It is incumbent upon ourselves not to seek political leadership that is pregnant with historical, political and economic emptiness of their land of origin. A worthy leader must be able to identify the enemy of his/her subjects and protect the resources of his/her people for futurity. Antagonist forces that define the world today and put Africa in its contemporary negative predicament are historical, political and economic in nature.