Njongonkulu Ndungane: UBUNTU
Last week I was privileged to attend the launch of a new liberation movement: the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign.
This movement’s main objective is the liberation of Africa from the chains of debt. The movement calls for Africa to begin the new millennium with a clean slate, free from debt, as a springboard to new hope.
I was impressed by the choice of Accra in Ghana as a venue for launching the campaign, for it was visionaries like that country’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who warned long ago of the threat to Africa’s economic health posed by high levels of indebtedness.
In its latest report, Jubilee 2000, quoting figures from the World Bank, notes that Africa transfers $14,4-billion annually to Western creditor countries. This is twice the amount spent on health in Africa.
In 1996 the poorest countries of sub- Saharan Africa paid their creditors more in debt service than they received in loans. For every $1 Africans receive in aid, they send back $1,30 in debt service.
The injustice that prevails in dealing with developing countries on issues related to debt was vividly illustrated by Ann Pettifor of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition. She contrasted the treatment by creditors of the large, bankrupt European company Eurotunnel with their treatment of the poorest countries in the world.
The protection offered to Eurotunnel by the legal concept of limited liability meant that the children of employees were protected from being held liable for their debts.
Not so the children of Tanzania, for example. When Julius Nyerere asks: “Shall we starve our children to pay our debts?”, international creditors effectively answer: “Yes, you shall urgently divert money from health, education, sanitation, and clean water – and use it for repaying foreign creditors. And yes, your children must also pay.” There are, of course, no limited liability laws governing the international debt of countries.
This is totally unacceptable. The dawn of a new millennium provides us with a kairos moment to look beyond the cancellation of debt and to establish a new set of principles to govern international lending and borrowing transactions. These should include:
l a link between debt cancellation and poverty eradication;
l new debts must be based on national agreement on their use, terms of repayment and servicing;
l the creation of a mediation council, consisting of all interested parties, to monitor such agreements;
l and good governance that is transparent and accountable.
In short, conditions should exist to ensure that governments are prohibited from borrowing money which they will be unable to repay and which will lead to retarded growth, underdevelopment and absence of reconstruction. This should be applicable to all developing countries.
Modern governments need to borrow to provide for growth, development and reconstruction. But such loans should only be accepted after a fine-tuned process of consultation with each country’s citizens.
A delegate from Uganda told the conference that his country’s government accepts no foreign loans without the authority of its Parliament. South Africa should introduce a similar principle, as a way of ensuring that development occurs in a sustained, practical manner and in areas where it is most needed. This will undoubtedly enhance good governance where accountability is paramount.
Only when such a partnership is forged between the people and their governments will a country’s citizens have complete trust in their elected representatives. Only then can a sustainable argument be advanced for our children to be held accountable for our debts.
The struggle for economic independence will not cease because, if the conference in Ghana was anything to go by, the people of Africa are determined that the next millennium will see African countries freed from the shackles of unmanageable debt. There is a saying that the third millennium is for the Third World.
In the words of Edmund Burke:”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”