Mutumwa Mawere

The role of politicians and businesspersons in shaping the future of any nation state can never be underestimated and yet little is known on what it takes to create a good politician or businessperson.

A lot is expected from politicians and businesspersons and regrettably no society has found a mechanism to convert a simple citizen into a responsible and trusted politician or businessperson.

The promise of independence naturally brought with it an expectation that the state could connect the missing dots in the black economic empowerment game.

Poverty, disease and lack of economic opportunities were and remain the enduring challenges in post-colonial Africa.

At the core of human civilization is an individual who finds himself or she enmeshed in a family context and the aggregation of families in a defined geographical space then becomes a nation state. Even in the family context it is difficult to establish any reliable causal link between family and individual success.

Equally, a politician who finds himself in a nation of hardworking citizens may also acquire a reputation of good leadership skills often forgetting that the most complicated asset in human civilization is the human being who is a sovereign entity and yet has to locate himself or herself in a complex matrix of relationships with other people who may or may not share the same worldview.

Business success is normally measured by profitability and cash flow generation while political success is measured by the reduction of the frontiers of poverty. A politician like a businessman is human after and has the same access to time as any individual and, therefore, cannot play God.

A politician, however, powerful cannot avoid death and can only see where his or her eyes can allow him or her to see. He or she has to sleep like any other individual and it would be wrong to put one's faith in another individual who may in the main be preoccupied with his or her own interests as an individual.

A businessperson, however, wealthy cannot also avoid death and any money not exchanged for goods or services does not really belong the person as the rights to such wealth can only be exercised when the person is alive. It is self evident that the money one has not used in the transactional market does not belong to the person who may have rights to it. Money is nothing but an illusion and is incapable of being owned but can allow the holder the possibility to exchange it for goods and services.

Politicians in democratic societies are a product of elections. There is no society that has found a mechanism for training political actors to know what they have to do but the expectation is that a politician should do no more than represent the interests of the people they are elected to represent. If the citizens want to be rich then they must elect politicians who would use the state to enable them to scale the heights in search of individual success.

There is nothing at birth that can provide an indication of who is going to be a successful businessman or politician. A family with successful individuals automatically confers on the family head a reputation of wisdom and success and yet such success may have little directly to do with the wisdom of the family head than to do with convenience, luck and hard worker of the individuals that distinguish themselves.

Ideally, a good politician should be one that allows the citizens to shine and act in their own interests. A businessperson on the contrary has to appreciate that the client or customer is the king for without a buyer or consumer of the goods or services produced there is no purpose of producing anything. Business success or failure can be objectively measured because if the customers sees no benefit in purchasing a good then there is nothing a businessperson can do to force the customer to behave otherwise.

Should there be a link between BEE and citizenship? In response to my article entitled: "Africa 2009: BEE and black success" www.mmawere.com/article/225 Mck from South Africa posed a few questions that are critical in better understanding what Africa needs to do to advance its interests. I will respond to the questions in the sequence in which they were posed.

Is a government right in preserving opportunities for its citizens?

The government is no more than an organ of citizens to advance their interests. For one to be a citizen, one must be in agreement with the generally held values, principles and objectives of the society. The people who reside in the nation state should own the government. It must be accepted that not all the people who reside in a nation state are normally citizens. Only citizens can vote while residents may enjoy all the rights that citizens enjoy but have no legal role to play in deciding who should govern the nation state. However, residents and citizens all contribute to the state in form of taxes if they generate any income.

It may be theoretically correct to reserve opportunities for citizens who may include people not born in the nation state but human beings are capable of identifying their own opportunities and it is not often the case that reserving opportunities will automatically make citizens successful. It may well be the case that non-citizens may be better placed to exploit opportunities than, for instance, citizens and in that case it would be in the interest of the country to allow such people to intervene.

There are many African countries that are well endowed with natural resources and yet African citizens notwithstanding reservation policies may not have the capital, knowledge and execution capabilities to convert such resources into marketable products and solutions.

A responsible government must act in the interests of the governed and there are instances where it may make more sense for a country to allow people irrespective of citizenship to identity opportunities that can advance national interest.

A progressive nation will always provide opportunities for citizens. Foreigners who have resources must be encouraged to invest because whatever they build in the country will remain for future generations to enjoy. Governments that have reserved opportunities for citizens without thinking through what is required to realize such opportunities have in many instances condemned their countries to low standards of living.

Based on the above, I would conclude that there is no right or wrong answer to the question but what is important is for citizens to balance economic nationalism with pragmatism. It may be pragmatic to open the economy to non-citizens fully cognizant of the fact that the inheritors will always be citizens who are in the majority. Citizenship laws are determined by governments informed by citizens' wishes and, therefore, the participation of foreigners can never threaten organized citizens who know where they need to go.

How effective have been such African blocs like SADC and Comesa, among others, in creating economic opportunities?

I do not believe that supranational institutions like SADC and Comesa can do more than citizens want to do. The problem is that opportunities can be best exploited in environments that are conducive and supportive. Citizens have a critical role to play is deciding on what kind of society they want to see. Regrettably African citizens expect state actors to be the change they want to see. Opportunities may be created but ultimately it is up to the individual actor to identify his or her market niche. It is significant that countries like Switzerland and Japan have shown what can be done with limited natural resources.

Human beings are capable of leaving the countries of birth in search of opportunities and the nature of human traffic goes a long way to showing that no border can deter a human being from searching for a better life. We rarely see people determined to migrate to countries that are not doing well.

How sustainable have been the forms of government adopted by African politicians?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Over the last 53 years of independence, there are more educated Africans who want to work and live in the West than who want to remain in Africa. The numbers in the Diaspora is increasing daily and many in the diaspora would want their children to be educated in the West than in Africa.

African politicians have been left on their own to shape the future while citizens have largely abdicated from their responsibilities to manage the nation-building project. As long as citizens surrender their power to unaccountable politicians, I do not believe that the forms of governments in Africa are sustainable. Most African governments are more accountable to donors than to citizens who are rarely organized to supervise their governments.

Is there any space for a model African politician?

I do not believe there is a space for a model African politician in as much as there is no space for a model African citizen. A politician is just another human being who may not be perfect. We have to accept what we have but what is important is that the citizens put checks and balances in place if they want their governments to work for them and not for politicians.

What limits should be recognized in protectionism policies in terms of economic skills acquisition?

I do not believe that limits should be applied in terms of economic skills acquisition. It must be appreciated that to create a skilled citizen requires significant investment by the nation. America, for instance, was founded as nation of immigrants and it has continued to attract superior human capital from non-performing nations. Africa's brain trust has been transformed into a brainpower for other nations. Such skilled people are economic value adding agents and their absence will not easily be substituted by local skills. It is important that Africa adopts less protectionist policies in terms of skills not only because of the shortage of such skills but because there is a causal link between economic progress and skills availability.

In conclusion, it is instructive that a market-based system can never prosper and be sustainable if it is race-based and based on a limited understanding of the concept of citizenship.