Ministry of Health official display a cheque for K100 million donated to
Meheba Rural Health Centre for the rehabilitation of the laboratory and
purchase of equipment that supports CD4 count machine on the eve of the
International Wolrd AIDS Day at Lumwana Pleasure Resort
Western countries are using aid to Africa as a smokescreen to hide the “sustained looting” of the continent as it loses nearly $60bn a year through tax evasion, climate change mitigation, and the flight of profits earned by foreign multinational companies, the Guardian quoted as a group of NGOs as saying.
Although sub-Saharan Africa receives $134bn each year in loans, foreign investment and development aid, research released on Tuesday by a group of UK and Africa-based NGOs suggests that $192bn leaves the region, leaving a $58bn shortfall.
According to the report, while Western countries send about $30bn in development aid to Africa every year, more than six times that amount leaves the continent, “mainly to the same countries providing that aid.”
The perception that such aid is helping African countries “has facilitated a perverse reality in which the UK and other wealthy governments celebrate their generosity whilst simultaneously assisting their companies to drain Africa’s resources,” the report claims.
It points out that foreign multinational companies siphon $46bn out of sub-Saharan Africa each year, while $35bn is moved from Africa into tax havens around the world annually.
The study, which also notes that African governments spend $21bn a year on debt repayments, calls for the aid system to be overhauled and made more open.
It says aid sent in the form of loans serves only to contribute to the continent’s debt crisis, and recommends that donors should use transparent contracts to ensure development assistance grants can be properly scrutinised by the recipient country’s parliament.
The report was authored by 13 UK and Africa-based NGOs, including: Health Poverty Action, Jubilee Debt Campaign, World Development Movement, African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, Friends of the Earth Africa, Tax Justice Network, People’s Health Movement Kenya, Zimbabwe and UK, War on Want, Community Working Group on Health Zimbabwe, Medact, Healthworkers4All, Friends of the Earth South Africa, JA!Justiça Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique.
Source:AtlantaBlack Star
Also see: The Guardian
How about the looting that our fellow Africans have done. you now have people like those who used to sell dogs for survival buying mansions in and outside Zambia.
we have warned you about this before and you say no the whites are our friends. I have written this before and read this well. we have no friends. not whites, not arabs, not indians, not asians not nobody. they have abused our kindness all throughout history and yet in our kindness we still think they are as human as we are. Umusungu temunobe.
@KK Airport: say it straight, You mean Musonda Sata. yes he is also a looter, useless thief who capitalized on his fathers big mouth.
I hate dependence on Foreign Donations, It just brings Zambians down that we are dull and can not utilize our resources properly. we truly need a change of mindset to stop this rubbish.
The plunder of Africa continues without shame, then they use institutions such as World Bank to rate some of our countiries as failed states, chronically poor, young and old academicians use the literature with passion to justify our poverty. African economists do not know how to count our wealth except for online evidence they have mastered – it is generated by those plundering our resources
…one wonders how a country like say India with such pronounced poverty going by the ramshackle, the Ghettos we see in documentaries can come over to zed to help..???…some developed countries with their own citizens being homeless, destitute…but they want to help a Zambian miles away…???
…wakeup Africa..
In the digital world there is no longer a smoke screen. One can read all about every cowboy riding the new frontier which is emerging markets. Our politicians with their love of tablets have access to the same information and more but get caught up in the challenges of their home turf. We are considered corruptible until we take a stand and stop the rot because in corruption there are always two parties. The ones who AGREE and the ones who PAY OUT. Case in point a huge tract of the eastern side of the continent is targeted under some new scheme that will give that land to international farmers. Hands up if you thin the locals will benefit when they openly say it is to grow more food for export to the west. Tax dodgers are doing well in Zed. Very very well. But we like their beer, sugar…
…if you think locals will benefit.
Tax dodgers are doing very very very well in Zambia. Aided by Zambians. Stand up for our economies which are not as incapable of success as we display.
If we have visionless presidents like Edgar, they will continue looting our continent. We say our continent is “RICH” but what do we do with those riches. Do we still need Europeans to come and show us what to do with it? Look at Japanees and South Koreans. Are they white? But they are miles ahead in terms of development. We say we have natural resources but look at the un employment levels! God help us. 50 years after independence and we still talking about our natural resources being looted. My Foot!!
Time we got over history. Keeps us wallowing in the past. When you have been robbed, you enhance your security. And when someone helps you, you feel indebted to them and play to their tune. As they say, there is nothing for free. Africa has enough resources to help itself and would be a force to reckon with but …..need I go on?
Quality of Citizenry has a big role to play in Job creation. We the citizens have to transform otherwise no real development will be attained. We need to trigger the desire to innovate. We the citizens should shun corruption. Our failure to innovate and create our own things is an opportunity for the rich countries to rob us! Embracing corruptions opens us up for manipulation and degrades the desire in people to innovate. In our setup, Government’s role should be to facilitate. Stay away from corruption and easy money and you will see this country grow.
But first we the citizens must be Patriotic, not thinking everything foreign is better than ours.
That is why we should treasure local investors and locally made millionaires like HH, because the keep their money and investments locally.
He’s just as slimed as they are. He robbed us of our Mines!
our governments allow this plunder. they are so corrupt that all these fake people come under the pretence of AID and they allow them to steal us dry.
Africa needs to invest within itself. China is transparent though crazy lol!
Loans as Aid has caused problems in Africa. It’s not making the terms transparent to African Parliament that is the problem.. No our gov’ts know the unfair terms and the crimes of Western countries giving a ‘little to rob a lot.’ All African Politicians in gov’t know it and go in bright eyed and wagging bushy tailed, salivating. For the ordinary people, we are caught in this game by both sides. To be fair, the gov’ts have to give in order they get much needed investment. The transparency must be made through a stronger Peoples body ( not run by Western countries in their favour, not crazy NGO’s). AND frankly African gov’ts can take these matters to Human Rights Courts. It’s a desperate situation that can only be rectified by ALL African citizens migrating to Western…
It’s a desperate situation that can only be rectified by ALL African citizens migrating to Western countries so that they can have the right to enjoy their wealth so stealthily taken by immoral Western countries. ?GET INTO THOSE BOATS FOLKS!!
One lifetime, that’s what you get. How many lifetimes are needed to bring righteousness to this field. I once watched a B Movie called Swarms or something like that, about man eating Bees from the African Continent ( where else would a white filmmaker have chosen?) attacking cities in a Western country! The scientists came up with various solutions, Burn em , Shot em’ etc….But as I watched this thinly veiled racist attack on ethnic minorities, I thought Africans could ‘ train’ those bees and other migrating animals to pick pocket Western Folks…..nah, maybe to Rob Central Banks in the West. …….is any bright African kid reading this…!!! Your summer holiday project! Some mad scientist project!
In Africa, we are totally undisciplined. We have leaders who are not ruthless with themselves in pursuit of excellence but who are quick being ruthless to their citizens. Africa has been a disgrace to most of its greatest admirers. The promise of independence which was supposed to usher in a period of prosperity and economic growth has not happened. Rather, Africa has been mired in all kinds of indescribable disorderliness brought about by people who have the mentality that the world owes them something. Today, Africa’s debt to the world stands at over $375 billion. This is the money that the Western world has irresponsibly lent to Africa, with no hope that they would ever have the funds to repay. In fact, in 1998 Africa spent more money servicing the loan than they received in…
Blacks are economic slaves. There is no group of people in this world who have abandoned any ambition of being economically independent from the grip of others as the Black race
-whether Africans from the continent, or Africans from the Diaspora
-Black Americans, Caribbeans or migratory Africans. We are more slaves now than when the Caucasian conquered us and sold us into slavery. The word slave means we are serfs, chattels, paupers, peons or vassals. There is nothing in Africa that is owned by the people.
We are owned stock and barrel by people of European-origin, Japanese, China, the Indians and any other people that has decided to become economically viable. In fact, I believe that the only possession in the world that the Black race could lay ownership to is the free air we…
One thing is certain. Africans like to dance. They like to party. They like to sing. They have enriched the world with all kinds of music, all kinds of dance steps. High-life, Jazz, Rock and Roll, Soul and now Hip-Hop. You name it in the music world, they invented it. We made the Walkman one of the most successful products ever launched. So far as it concerns music, we are there. Numero uno.
You would believe that a people who are so much into music and singing, would have factories producing guitars or any of the other musical equipment. You would think that they would own companies that produce the albums. You would think that they would control the distribution system of their albums. But as usual, Africans take the back seat and let others control them. Even the music magazines are…
In most African countries, there is no good drinking water, no good roads, no electricity, no good health care. Every country in Africa is supposedly independent, but every African country is still under the yoke of colonialism. Africans depend on Europeans for all their needs. It is a joke and the height of stupidity, to claim to be independent when you depend on your oppressors for everything you use.
It is a well known fact that a group which cannot protect itself economically will always be a slave to others. It is even more certain when the group arrogates to itself the status of being the most educated immigrant group in the U.S. The United States, as every immigrant group which has never migrated to this country has found out, is a land of opportunities. You can become whatever it…
Africans cannot produce the pins they use, the needles to sew; the chalk, pencil or pen to write with; we do not produce the radio we listen to; we don not produce the television we look at; we do not produce the cars we drive; we do not produce the guns we use in killing one another; we do not produce the bulbs we use in lighting our homes; we do not produce the telephone gadgets we use in talking; the money we use, we do not produce the machinery used in engraving them; if not for the Europeans, we would still be using hoes in farming; all the modern agricultural equipment are made by other people for Africans.
African women pride themselves in being beautiful. But the body lotion they use is imported; we do not produce the lipstick they use in coloring their lips in all kinds of…
I feel the UK wants a clear conscience bought by a token amount of aid. Many in the UK even resent this! If we look at history, we can see it isn’t possible: there is no way to adequately repay what was taken by force from Africa, and what continues to be taken through the multinational corporations. What is done is done, but Africa has the moral right to ask for a share of the wealth their resources made possible! In the long run wealth inequality makes the world an unhappy place, and no good comes of it. We can do better than this, and countries like the UK can afford to help! If not through aid, then through sharing and working together for mutual benefit. The idea that the UK has nothing to learn from Africa is arrogant rubbish!
African leaders are to blame for all this mess. Asian countries used science to learn how to make things and use lower cost of their countries to make things for 1st world countries. China, India, the Koreas, Indonesia all now are the factories of the world. Their economies are booming. Meanwhile Africa is blaming someone else. And Zambians want to do away with Grade 12 as a minimum requirement for leadership jobs in government. Why are they lowering the educational requirement of leaders? To keep the stupidity which will benefit Europeans and Asians. The stupidity continues while blaming someone else. Africans were colonized by Europe now they are being colonized by Asia.That is the truth. Even the report on exploitation was not made by Africans.