This is why unregulated aid to Africa - like debt forgiveness - is a very bad idea:
The scale of the task facing Tony Blair in his drive to help Africa was laid bare yesterday when it emerged that Nigeria's past rulers stole or misused £220 billion.
That is as much as all the western aid given to Africa in almost four decades. The looting of Africa's most populous country amounted to a sum equivalent to 300 years of British aid for the continent.
The figures, compiled by Nigeria's anti-corruption commission, provide dramatic evidence of the problems facing next month's summit in Gleneagles of the G8 group of wealthy countries which are under pressure to approve a programme of debt relief for Africa.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has spoken of a new Marshall Plan for Africa. But Nigeria's rulers have already pocketed the equivalent of six Marshall Plans. After that mass theft, two thirds of the country's 130 million people - one in seven of the total African population - live in abject poverty, a third is illiterate and 40 per cent have no safe water supply.
With more people and more natural resources than any other African country, Nigeria is the key to the continent's success.
Africa's troubles - AIDS and famine and genocide - are not the result of bad luck. They are the result of decades and decade of corruption, vice, and unchallenged tyranny.
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3 comments:
You make a valid point however this very fact actually speaks volumes about the real need for debt-forgiveness.
What situations like this have in fact done is forced generations of Africans to be saddled with barely being able to service the debt on millions of dollars in funds (that in some instances) corrupt governments borrowed.
In many instances these people simply paying the interest alone on money they never saw and in fact sometimes these go on long after the origional government is long gone.
It is like a person who keeps getting pay-day loans and come next pay-day starts back over. Actually it is worse, because they often never are able to even touch the principal.
The debt-forgiveness is very important to breaking this cycle. But it also must carry better oversight with it. The fact of the matter is, the G8 countries are as much to blame in this viscous cycle as the corrupt borrowers. That is all the more reason we must be a part of the solution.
I agree with Michael. And many current African governments - including Nigeria - are dealing with corruption. Corruption is an issue, but can be an easy scapegoat for us to avoid our own failings and responsibilities too.
Forgiveness is much more that some conscious notation. It must be thorough, through and through, from the inside out. There is a powerful free tool to help with this at www.innertalk.com.
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