AfCTA provides Africa opportunities
The Africa Free Trade Area (AfCTA) trade commenced on January 2021. This historic agreement has been in the pipeline since the days of the Organisation of African Union (OAU), the continental body replaced by African Union.
In so doing, the continent largely lost its pan-Africanist direction. Indeed, many of the so-called “New breed of African leaders” did not attach any significance to the rich history and recommendations of the OAU. In fact, it seems as if there was an effort to erase or completely disregard the legacy of the continents independence forefathers.
In 2019, I stated that Ugandan president Idi Amin was actually the leader who introduced the idea of AfCTA during the African Union summit in 1973.
As the AfCTA becomes a reality today, it should be a recognition of all the OAU principals, who were pivotal in bringing about the unity of African nations.
The AfCTA is designed to boost intra-African trade by creating a common market. While for decades we have been told by World Bank experts that foreign direct investment (FDI) is the silver bullet for the continents prosperity, the continent has started veering from this colonial ideology and neo-colonial economic model to an Africa one that had learnt not only to build itself, but also to depend on itself for economic prosperity for its united people.
That is why some of Africans with economic knowledge have been engaged in a pragmatic evaluation of the continents economic priorities so as to help people to know what policies benefit Africa most.
Imagine a Ugandan businessman and a foreign investor engaging in a similar investment in Uganda and both of their companies are equally successful. The profits from the Ugandan company will go to paying taxes in the country. This will help to provide public services such as roads, healthcare, education, etc, in Uganda.
The Ugandan entrepreneur will also use some of the profits to improve the livelihood of his family by educating their children, building a good house complete with clean water and electricity connections, etc.
Meanwhile, a similar Uganda-based company, but owned by a foreign investor will see much of its profits flown abroad to country of the foreign investor. Between the local and foreign investor , which one is more profitable to Ugandans?
While African governments have for the last five decades been promoting investors as the solution to Africa’s economic woes, and have spent billions of dollars trying to attract foreign investors, it is clear that the continent should prioritise utilising our resources to support African entrepreneurs.
This is because they are the ones who will indeed grow the African economy. They also need to be supported by their respective countries to expand into the larger African markets in order to make them more competitive.
The launch of AfCTA at this moment in time is a God-sent launchpad for a greater African say in global markets.
Hussein Lumumba Amin,
[email protected]
