—- Outlines Major Reforms for Africa Investment Climate
“The history and growth and development of the African people cannot be divorced from your history of the advancement of society and humanity.”
IPNEWS: Deputy House Speaker of the Liberian Legislature, Cllr. Fonati Koffa on Tuesday, July 11, lighted the 8th ALM London- Africa summit currently taking place in London, the United Kingdom to a standing- ovation when he exponentiated the democratic credentials of President George Weah government in sustaining Liberia’s peace, especially upholding the tenants of democracy.
Deputy Speaker Koffa told world leaders that if the share values of new opportunities for African investment, partnership and collaboration should be sustain between the United Kingdom-Africa trade relations, there is a need for the fullest recognition in the battle for the hearts and minds of Africa.
Koffa stated that the prevailing governing model in Africa made out of western democracy, has now been accepted by millions across the African Continent that government is ‘for, by and of the people’.
The Grand Kru County District No. 2 lawmaker stressed that Elections is Africa’s new norm where many young and innovative African leaders have gone beyond the old era of politicking and are now calling for reduced terms and term limits as led by presidents George Weah of Liberia and Macky Sall of Senegal.
“Even more so, the normalization of women in politics was championed by Liberia’s election of the first democratically elected female head of state in Africa and a female vice president today. Liberia joined Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa in championing the cause of women in politics both in the executive and legislative branches.”
“Totalitarianism is gradually being erased from the African psyche of governance and rightly so. We have seen what totalitarianism does, where one man can just wake up in the morning and decides he must take over a whole country and subjugate a whole people without a democratic exercise to validate his whims and caprices. The people of Ukraine are the latest victims of this much discredited governance system.” Deputy House Speaker Fonati Koffa said Amidst cheers.
Touching on the significance of continued trade between the United Kingdom and Africa, Cllr. Fonati Koffa said given the improvement in the democratic credentials of many African countries, especially Liberia, it is now time for the UK to intensify trade relations with Africa.
Fonati Koffa: “Now is the time to embrace trade not aid so that we can be true partners and an African market of 1.2 billion people will become a bastion of sophisticated consumers and not just victims of a world order which is in the ash heap of history, subjects of a guilt-ridden world who prefers to render pity and charity as a means of assuaging guilt that holds no one accountable and yet leaves no one better off. We must begin anew.”
“I must admit simply embracing democracy is not enough. Africa must recognize its full potential and go back to the future, the days when Kwame Nkrumah, and Sekou Toure, and William Tubman, and Jomo Kenyatta preached Pan Africanism. There must be a new Pan African movement for economic growth. A dear friend of mine wrote a book subtitled “Rich land; poor country” which can easily describe most African countries today, from Democratic Republic of Congo with its trillion-dollar mineral reserves to Equatorial Guinea and the Federal Republic of Nigeria with billions of dollars of oil deposits.”
“This new Pan Africanism must vigorously implement the concept of open borders and free movement of African states. The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has successfully implemented this concept and is seeing significant benefits of trade between and among people of different nations. The African Union must move fast to implement the open borders and free movement policies so that increased trade and access to each other markets can be seamlessly accomplished.”
Deputy Speaker Koffa quickly stressed the difficult challenge of a single currency to facilitate trade in the new Africa-London trade relations.
He cautioned the heaviest consequences of doing business on a continent of complicities in currencies, especially the lack of value for most of those currencies.
“The next challenged but more difficult one is the adoption of a single currency. It is counterproductive to do business in a continent of at least 40 different currencies in which many of those currencies have no value and the rest are artificially pegged. A single currency will make trade easier and our nations stronger in the global economy. If the African economy is strong, the incentive to engage in Africa will be compelling and make economic sense.” Representative Koffa averred.
Universal Policy And Natural Resources
The Deputy House Speaker, further called for a ‘universal policy or protocol’ which prevents the transshipment of raw minerals from the shores of African, if African raw materials must attract value.
He said ‘If Africa minerals are valuable enough to be extracted, it must be valuable enough to be processed and exported as a finished product’ by carrying label “Made in Africa.”
“It makes no sense to extract our raw materials to supply factories in China that sells finished goods to the west. Our economies will not grow, our working class will not increase, our middle class will not prosper as long as we are hewers of wood and drawers of water. We must demand value added manufacturing from the natural resources extracted from our lands. It does not make sense, for fishing trawlers to mine tuna a few miles off the shores of West Africa, take them to Spain for processing and packaging, then exporting them to Africa as finished consumables. “
“Now to reflect on UK trade relations with Africa is to first recognize the historical relationship between Africa and the UK. At the height of the British Empire, the UK held more colonies than any other nation. More people in Africa speak English than any other foreign language. The UK was instrumental in building democracies in Africa. You cannot now cede the economic space to the Chinese. If you do that, the African basic mobility will be from a thatch hut to a zinc one; her social status will be diminished; and we will be nations of shiny things.”
“For the Chinese approach to economic development in Africa is to give seemingly shiny objects in exchange for rapid depletion of our natural resources often with labor disputes. Just like the UK help us build our democracies so too must you help us build our economy by fostering policies and approaches that encourage free movement, open borders, single currency, and value-added manufacturing. You must help to make us equal in fact and not just in theory.”
“This is the legacy of UK trade relations with Africa which we collectively endeavor to achieve. Both sides must be competitors. Let not one side continue to be the victim seeking charity and pity while sitting on their gold mines which fuel the world economy.” Cllr. Fonati Koffa told world leaders.
