AfricaFocus Bulletin
February 7, 2017 (170207)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

In the world of large multinational corporations, secrecy is more
than the rule rather than exception. Despite this reality, there
have been some advances in recent years, including U.S. legislation
and regulations requiring disclosure of payments by U.S. oil, gas,
and mining companies to foreign governments. Last week, the U.S.
Congress revoked this Security and Exchange Commission rule, a year
before it was actually to be implemented. Although comparatively
little noticed in comparison to the tumult around White House
actions, this was an indication that the Republican Congress as well
was determined to reverse even modest steps to fight corporate
corruption and other similar abuses.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
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In this context, the continuing Africa-wide campaign to curb some
$70 billion in illicit financial flows from the continent   becomes
both more difficult and even more imperative. A timely new report
just released on January 27 by six civil society organizations lays
out specific steps that African governments can take to “accelerate
the IFF agenda.” The six include five African organizations (Trust
Africa, Tax Justice Network-Africa, the Pan African Lawyers Union,
CRADEC (Cameroon),  CISLAC (Nigeria), and Global Financial Integrity
(Washington, DC).

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains (1) a brief article on the U.S.
congressional action to revoke the SEC rule on transparency for oil,
gas, and mining companies, and (2) the full text of “Accelerating
the IFF Agenda for African countries.”

For more information on the revocations of the SEC rule, visit
https://thefactcoalition.org/press/news-releases/,
http://www.pwypusa.org/category/press-releases/, and
http://tinyurl.com/ze7rr6k

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on illicit financial flows,
corruption, and related issues, see
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Trump Election: Intersecting Explanations
http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/trump-win-reasons.php

Observations (third installment, Feb 7, 2017)

Since the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, the
news cycle has been driven by the rapid pace of executive orders,
tweets, and, most surprisingly, an unprecedented range of resistance
to the assault on democratic values and rationality by the new
administration. Although the debate about explanations for the Trump
election have faded into the background, they remain highly relevant
for the present and future, for evaluation of his questionable
legitimacy, analysis of both medium-term and long-term strategies
for resistance, and, at a deeper level, as x-rays or CAT scans to
help piece together a deeper analysis of the history and driving
forces underpinning the U.S. and global socioeconomic and political
order.

[Continued at http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/explanations.php]

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Following House, Senate Axes SEC Oil, Mining Payments Rule Bloomberg
BNA, February 6, 2017

By Rob Tricchinelli

http://tinyurl.com/zxm2bs6

The Senate voted early Feb. 3 to revoke an SEC rule requiring oil,
gas and mining companies to disclose more about their operations,
two days after related House action. President Donald Trump can now
sign the measure, which would negate the long-embattled Securities
and Exchange Commission rule mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and
designed to fight overseas corruption.

It was set to take effect in 2018 and force companies like Chevron
Corp. to reveal payments to governments tied to resource
development.

Republican lawmakers are using the Congressional Review Act to kill
the rule, which skirts the procedural requirement for 60 Senate
votes. The vote broke along party lines, 52-47, with Sen. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.) not voting.

Dodd-Frank Mandate

While the CRA action negates the SEC rule, it doesn’t strip away the
Dodd-Frank Act provision mandating the regulation. This means the
SEC is still technically required to craft the measure, even though
a Republican-led commission is unlikely to act and Republican
lawmakers are seeking to repeal that part of Dodd-Frank.

Several Republican lawmakers said they want the SEC to craft a
better rule. “It’s time to go back to the drawing board and redo
it,” Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), who sponsored the effort in the
House, told Bloomberg BNA in a brief interview. Democrats slammed
the move. “This bill puts Big Oil and its cronies ahead of
transparency and accountability, and ought to be called the
Kleptocrat Relief Act,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a news
release.

Try, Try Again

The rule has a tortured history. The SEC’s first attempt was struck
down in a lawsuit by the American Petroleum Institute. The second
attempt was prompted by a different lawsuit alleging the agency was
dragging its feet in reproposing it. Oil, gas and mineral companies
argue that the rule’s compliance costs, which the SEC estimates to
run in the tens or hundreds of millions industry-wide, outweigh its
benefits. The rule’s supporters counter that similar rules are
already in effect in other jurisdictions without hampering the
industry. They also say disclosures would reduce graft in mineral-
rich countries whose residents have low standards of living.

“It is alarming that lawmakers would move to undermine American
efforts to combat violent extremism abroad by rolling back this
anti-corruption measure, which protects American companies and
democratic interests around the globe,” Clark Gascoigne, deputy
director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency
Coalition, said in a news release.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Tricchinelli in
Washington atrtricchinelli@bna.com

******************************************************

Accelerating the IFF Agenda for African Countries

January 2017

http://tinyurl.com/jf6ro5n

Introduction

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) are a large and growing problem for
the African continent, with upwards of $70 billion in IFFs leaving
the continent annually. African governments, intergovernmental
organizations, industry, and civil society have come to understand
the severity of the problem over the past few years.

The following list of actions are meant to address some of the first
steps in addressing IFFs. These actions are foundational, involving
measures that can either be undertaken more quickly and easily in
some countries where some of the processes and commitments may
already be underway or measures that lay the groundwork for later
reforms. The result is an Accelerated IFF Agenda that governments
can use as a place to begin their work to tackle IFFs in their own
countries, leading to greater domestic resource mobilization and
growth, resources which will be critical in making progress on the
Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the Addis Tax
Initiative, and the Africa Mining Vision.

In considering the items on the Accelerated IFF Agenda, it is
important to remember two things. The first is that this should not
be seen as an all-or-nothing agenda. Each of these measures is
important in its own right and can be implemented independently of
others, and governments may want to consider ways to phase in
certain actions. For example, requiring country-by-country reporting
of all multinational companies operating in the country is one
option, but a government could instead require it only of companies
operating in the extractive industries or in construction. Second,
public involvement in helping achieve many of these aims can be of
great benefit. For example, a team of computer science students at a
university might be able to assist in the creation of an online
registry for corporations. Civil society organizations, academics,
the country’s youth, and other parts of society want to help tackle
IFFs for the good of their countries and their futures. Working with
them can multiply the effectiveness of many of the government’s
efforts, as well as building confidence with donors, investors, and
citizens.

The Accelerated IFF Agenda

Below is a list of fourteen measures governments can take in the
immediate term to catalyze their efforts to combat IFFs. Brief
explanations of each measure are included in the pages that follow.

Create Governmental IFF Policy

1. Establish Multi-Agency Units within Governments to Address IFFs

2. Include IFF Accountability within the African Peer Review
Mechanism

Promote Financial Transparency

3. Establish or Enhance Online Corporate Registries, Make
Information Publicly Available, and Require Beneficial Ownership
Information as Part of the Registration Process

4. Adopt the Open Contracting Data Standard

5. Require Disclosure of Beneficial Ownership Information from all
Government Contract Bidders

6. Require Disclosure of Beneficial Ownership Information in
Political Asset Declarations

7. Establish Government/Independent Measurement Mechanisms for
Extracted Natural Resources

Increase Enforcement Efforts and Powers

8. Adopt a Law Clearly Prohibiting Trade Misinvoicing

9. Establish Specialized Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Units and/or
Advocate for the Creation of a Special Office of Asset Recovery
within the African Union

Tackle Tax Evasion and Avoidance

10. Join African Tax Information Sharing Networks

11. Establish Transfer Pricing Units within Tax Authorities

12. Require Public Country-by-Country Reporting by Multinationals

Prevent Financial Crime

13. Mandate Rigorous Customer Due Diligence and Suspicious Activity
Reporting Programs within Banks

14. Empower Strong and Effective Financial Intelligence Units (and
create them if not yet established)

Several of the actions identified above require that certain
information be made available to the public. Countries may also want
to consider adopting a more wide-ranging law, regulation or policy
that provides the public with greater access to government
information and data, often called freedom of information
provisions.

Additional Detail for Accelerating the IFF Agenda for African
Countries

Create Governmental IFF Policy

1. Establish Multi-Agency Units within Governments to Address IFFs

IFFs affect all aspects of a country’s economy, therefore approaches
to curtailing IFFs must include agencies from across government,
enabling agencies to come together to coordinate and to develop
policy.

Governments should consider establishing multi-agency units that
include officials from various ministries or departments who
specialize in:

*  Financial intelligence and bank supervision

*  Import administration

*  Export administration

*  Transfer pricing

*  Income tax

*  Natural resource exploitation

*  National criminal investigations

*  National criminal prosecutions

*  Anti-corruption

To ensure that these multi-agency units can function effectively,
countries should ensure that laws are in place to allow officials
from different agencies to share information within these multi-
agency units. Some African countries have begun to establish multi-
agency units, but they are often more narrowly focused on, for
example, corruption or ‘illicit finance’ as described in the US-
Africa Partnership on Illicit Finance. While we welcome the
initiative to build on these existing multi-agency endeavors, we
believe it is imperative that the scope of work for the units be
broad enough to encompass the entirety of the IFF challenge.

2. Include IFF Accountability within the African Peer Review
Mechanism and Open Government Partnership Commitments

Countries should call on the African Union to include IFF-related
questions on the African Peer Review Mechanism questionnaire. As a
starting point, questions on this questionnaire could address each
of the policy areas recommended in this document. In addition,
African countries that are part of the Open Government Partnership
(OGP) should include in their OGP National Action Plans commitments
to carry out the action items identified in this document.

This action would implement previous recommendations made by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa,  which were endorsed by the African
Union in January 2015. The High Level Panel on Illicit Financial
Flows from Africa is now a joint initiative of the African Union and
the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Promote Financial Transparency

3. Establish or Enhance Online Corporate Registries, Make
Information Publicly Available, and Require Beneficial Ownership
Information as Part of the Registration Process

Countries could look to legislation and regulation from early
adopters like the United Kingdom and the Ukraine for models on how
to implement these measures. In addition, a number of other
countries have committed to establishing public registers or
exploring their establishment and may soon have legislation that
could be referenced in developing domestic measures. These countries
include Bulgaria, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya,
Netherlands, New Zealand, and Nigeria.

This action would implement previous recommendations made by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa, and the Human Rights Development
Initiative, which was appointed by the African Union’s African
Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights to conduct a study on the
human rights implications of IFFs.

4. Adopt the Open Contracting Data Standard

The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a common data model
that establishes a framework to enable governments to publish
shareable, reusable, and machine-readable procurement data that is
publicly accessible. While many countries have started to publish
PDFs of procurement contracts, information provided in PDF form is
of extremely limited utility. Adoption of a global data standard
like the OCDS is not just an exercise in publishing procurement
information. It enables governments to conduct assessments on the
fitness of their procurement systems by examining the experiences
and outcomes of other countries using the same standard. In
addition, the OCDS is a mature standard, offering practical tools,
expertise, and support to assist governments in adoption of the
standard.

The Contracting 5—Colombia, France, Mexico, Ukraine, and the UK—are
implementing the OCDS, and Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tunisia have included open contracting in
their National Action Plans for the Open Government Partnership.
Uganda developed an open contracting platform, the Government
Procurement Portal (GPP), and continues to work to improve the
system.

This action would implement previous recommendations on open
contracting and open spending made by the UN Economic Commission for
Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa,
and the Pan African Lawyers’ Union.

5. Require Disclosure of Beneficial Ownership Information from all
Government Contract Bidders

Currently, the Open Data Contracting Standard does not collect
information on beneficial ownership. To fill this gap, countries
should require beneficial ownership disclosures for all bidders for
and recipients of government contracts to help prevent sham bidding,
bidding by persons barred from government procurement for past
actions, and other forms of corruption in bidding processes. Such
policies are already in place in Slovakia and could serve as a study
for countries wishing to implement this recommendation.

This action would implement previous recommendations made by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa.

6. Require Disclosure of Beneficial Ownership Information in
Political Asset Declarations

Conflicts of interest may not be readily identifiable in asset
declarations unless the beneficial owners of the entities included
are known. Adding this detail to the asset declaration requirements
can help identify where potential conflicts may arise in the
individual’s political work. The Ukraine has passed legislation
requiring the inclusion of beneficial ownership of property
information on its asset declarations, and Liberia has included
making use of beneficial ownership information on asset declarations
an element of its National Action Plan for the US-Africa Partnership
on Illicit Finance.

7. Establish Government/Independent Measurement Mechanisms for
Extracted Natural Resources

Governments should independently determine or verify the actual
volume of natural resources being extracted from the ground by
mining and oil companies and not just rely on the volumes reported
by the companies. Without independent verification of the volume of
natural resources being extracted, it is impossible to determine if
companies have in fact paid the correct amount to the government
under their extraction contracts.

Zambia has implemented the Mineral Value Chain Monitoring Project
(MCVMP), which aims to independently monitor and facilitate the
exploration and exploitation of mining and mineral value chains in
the country. International support has contributed to the MCVMP
effort in Zambia, including the Government of Norway, the European
Union, and the Public Finance Management Reform programme. 8 Where
the African Mining Vision and/or the African Mineral Governance
Framework call for similar verification of the volume of minerals
extracted, this action item could be implemented through those
initiatives. This action builds on the strength of the OCDS and the
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which track
agreements and payments between governments and companies.

Increase Enforcement Efforts and Powers

8. Adopt a Law Clearly Prohibiting Trade Misinvoicing

Trade misinvoicing is the manipulation of the price, value, or
quantity of a good on an international invoice in order to avoid
taxes, move money, or evade capital controls. Of measurable IFFs,
trade misinvoicing has historically represented and continues to
represent the largest portion of IFFs. Though trade misinvoicing is
a relatively simple technique to use, it is exceedingly difficult
for government officials to identify. Moreover, the widespread,
routine, and customary nature of its use makes enacting a law
prohibiting the conduct essential in order to put business persons
on notice and to empower prosecutors to prosecute the conduct when
it is identified.

Example of a model law criminalizing trade misinvoicing:

Whoever, in relation to the importation or exportation of goods or
in relation to the trade in services or intangible property,
deliberately misstates, manipulates, falsifies, or omits a price,
quantity, volume, grade, or other material aspect of an invoice for
the purpose of (i) evading or avoiding VAT taxes, customs duties,
income taxes, or any other form of tax or revenue collected by the
Government; (ii) obtaining a tax benefit, export subsidy, or other
benefit provided by the Government; or (iii) evading or avoiding
[capital or foreign exchange controls]; shall be subject to a civil
or criminal fine of up to [specific amount] [or imprisoned for up to
[x] year[s], or both].

This action would implement previous recommendations made by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa.

9. Establish Specialized Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Units and/or
Advocate for the Creation of a Special Office of Asset Recovery
within the African Union

Asset forfeiture and recovery efforts deprive all types of criminals
of the proceeds of their crime, providing powerful disincentives for
crime in the first place. However, in order to be effective
disincentives, these efforts must be consistent and efficient.
Because they involve funds found in other jurisdictions, asset
recovery efforts require specialized knowledge of foreign legal
systems and mutual legal assistance treaties. Establishing units
specializing in asset forfeiture and recovery ensures that all
criminals face the potential for the loss of their criminal proceeds
and improves the odds of a country recovering the funds because of
the increased capacity and expertise that these units develop over
time.

Another approach would be to advocate for the creation of a special
office of asset recovery within the African Union. This office could
assist and facilitate asset repatriation requests among states,
including the maintenance of a public list of funds requested for
return and the status of such requests. Taking this approach could
contribute to the implementation of the recommendation by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa for the African Union to lead an effort
to establish a global governance framework for asset freezing and
repatriation. 10 The African Development Bank has also committed to
supporting a regional network on recovery of stolen assets in its
recently adopted Bank Group Policy on the Prevention of Illicit
Financial Flows. In addition, collaborative asset recovery
approaches already exist. For example, Asset Recovery Inter-Agency
Networks (ARIN) have been initiated in Southern Africa, East Africa,
and West Africa.

Tackle Tax Evasion and Avoidance

10. Join African Tax Information Sharing Networks

Several African countries have signed up to the OECD-led Common
Reporting Standard (CRS) for the international exchange of
information about bank accounts held by citizens abroad in an effort
to capture lost tax revenue. Access to this information is critical
in identifying and pursuing cases of individual tax evasion because
without the information provided by the foreign countries, the home
country has no way of knowing which citizens hold taxable bank
accounts abroad and must instead rely upon self-reporting by
individuals.

However, some African countries may have difficulty initially
accessing the broader international system for automatic exchange of
tax information because of how the system has been set up (with
little input from developing countries). Despite this, the
international framework could readily be adapted to establish
exchange arrangements among developing countries, especially within
regions. In fact, the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) is
currently engaged in a pilot program facilitating automatic exchange
of tax information among a number of African countries. In addition
to enabling African countries to get this critical information
sooner than may be available from developed countries, it offers
countries the opportunity to demonstrate capacity to perform within
these arrangements, making the country a more attractive potential
exchange partner for developed countries down the line.

11. Establish Transfer Pricing Units within Tax Authorities

Financial arrangements within corporate groups or among related
entities are nearly impossible to observe from the outside and
consequently are of high risk for manipulation. For this reason,
transactions among these parties, referred to as transfer pricing,
warrant special attention. Given the complexity of these
arrangements and transactions, it has been found that forming units
with highly trained officials to monitor these types of transactions
yields the most consistent and effective results for tax
administrations.

This action would implement previous recommendations made by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa, and the Human Rights Development
Initiative.

12. Require Public Country-by-Country Reporting by Multinationals

Public country-by-country reporting (CBCR) helps identify where
transfer pricing investigations should focus. By requiring companies
to provide basic financial information for entire corporate groups,
disaggregated by country, tax administrations are better able to
identify the risk of potential transfer pricing abuse and even
identify jurisdictions of concern to help establish more sensitive
risk management frameworks within tax administrations.

African countries should require foreign multinational corporations
(MNCs) operating in their country to provide their country-by-
country reports with their local tax returns and encourage those
MNCs to make the information publicly available. Further, African
countries should require MNCs headquartered in their country to
prepare and publish country-by-country reports.

This action would implement previous recommendations made by the UN
Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit
Financial Flows from Africa. 12

Prevent Financial Crime

13. Mandate Rigorous Customer Due Diligence and Suspicious Activity
Reporting Programs within Banks

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has set the international
standards for customer due diligence and suspicious activity
reporting in their FATF Recommendations 2012 standard,
Recommendations 10 and 20, respectively. Countries can look to their
FATF-Style Regional Body (FSRB) for assistance in implementing and
strengthening their laws and regulations in this area. This action
would implement previous recommendations made by the UN Economic
Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows
from Africa, and the Human Rights Development Initiative. 14.
Empower Strong and Effective Financial Intelligence Units (and
create them if not yet established)

Financial intelligence units (FIUs) are bodies that collect and, if
given the power, coordinate intelligence on financial crime that
results in IFFs. Creating FIUs where none exist, and giving them
strong powers of coordination and information collation from
different arms of government (possibly in a lead role in a Multi-
Agency IFF Unit (see point 1 above)), is critical to organizing and
operationalizing counter-IFF measures. Additionally, connecting to
the international network of FIUs, the Egmont Group, can help
facilitate cooperation among FIUs of different countries. While most
African countries do have FIUs, only twenty-two African countries
have FIUs that are members of the Egmont Group.

About

This document is the result of consultations among experts on
various elements of illicit financial flows, including:

* Raymond Baker – Global Financial Integrity, Washington, D.C., USA

* Jason Braganza – Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A), Nairobi,
Kenya

* Liz Confalone – Global Financial Integrity, Washington, D.C., USA

* Donald Deya – Pan African Lawyers’ Union (PALU), Arusha, Tanzania

* Donald Ideh – TrustAfrica, Abuja, Nigeria

* Heather Lowe – Global Financial Integrity, Washington, D.C., USA

* Jean Mballa Mballa РCentre R̩gional Africain pour le
Développement Endogène et Communautaire (CRADEC), Yaoundé, Cameroon

*  Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani) – Civil Society Legislative
Center (CISLAC), Abuja, Nigeria

*  Crystal Simeoni – Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A), Nairobi,
Kenya

We wish to thank the Swedish International Development Agency for
their support of this project.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
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http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
January 23, 2017 (170123)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Eskom, accused of overly cozy ties with the Guptas featured heavily
in the report, with 916 mentions. … it’s Eskom’s chief executive,
Brian Molefe, who comes out looking the worst. According to cell
phone records, Molefe had 58 phone calls with the eldest of the
Gupta brothers, Ajay Gupta, between August 2015 and March 2016, just
before the Guptas purchased South Africa’s Optimum coal mine for
2.15 billion rand ($160 million). Eskom, which prepaid the Gupta’s
Tegeta Exploration and Resources 600 million rand for coal, had been
accused of helping to finance the Guptas’ coal mine deal through
preferential treatment.” – Quartz Africa

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs17/saf1701.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
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In South Africa, as elsewhere in countries both large and small, the
debates about government energy policy are often framed in terms of
what is best for the “national interest.” But few doubt that behind
these choices between renewable energy options and others (fossil
fuels or nuclear energy), there are also private interests, whose
roles in the management of the state are not new but are becoming
more and more blatant (see below on links on the common stakes of
the incoming Trump administration and Russia’s Putin in promoting
fossil-fuel interests).

Concentrating on this aspect of what is termed “state capture” in
South Africa, this AfricaFocus Bulletin includes (1) brief excerpts
from the 355-page report on “State of Capture” from Public Protector
Thuli Madonsela; (2) an article with a summary of the report from
Quartz Africa, and (3) an article from The Conversation on the state
capture issue and its effects on plans for nuclear energy.

Two recent articles with background on the energy debate include:

le Cordeur, Matthew, “5 reasons why Eskom is wrong about renewables
costs – CSIR,” Jan 12, 2017 http://www.fin24.com – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jmpts84

“Eskom delaying R50 billion renewable energy plan to push nuclear
goals,” Jan 10, 2017, http://businesstech.co.za – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/zcqku94

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Just Announced re State Capture in Mozambique

Watch live on youtube January 25
Zitamar News and Africa Research Institute present:
A Webinar on Mozambique’s Debt Crisis
Wednesday 25 January – 15:00 Maputo / 13:00 London / 08:00 New York

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Trump Election: Intersecting Explanations
http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/trump-win-reasons.php

Observations (second installment), Jan 23, 2017

In the period between the election and the inauguration, the
highest profile debate about reasons for the Trump electoral win was
about Putin’s intervention. But that debate produced more heat than
light, while key issues such as the common interests of Putin and
the Trump administration in promoting the fossil-fuel industry
received only marginal attention.

See http://noeasyvictories.org/usa/putin-intervention.php for  short
observations and database entries for 31 sources to date.

Articles on the fossil-fuel connection in particular include:

Joe Romm, “Did Putin help elect Trump to restore $500 billion Exxon
oil deal killed by sanctions?,” ThinkProgress, Jan 8, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/z6d45ub

Rachel Maddow, 5-minute video on ExxonMobil & Russia deal, Dec. 20,
2016 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n60SzMzjXog

Alex Steffen, “Trump, Putin and the Pipelines to Nowhere
You can’t understand what Trump’s doing to America without
understanding the ‘Carbon Bubble’,” Dec 15, 2016, http://medium.com
– Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hb2xnc6

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“State of Capture”: A Report of the Public Protector

14 October 2016

Full 355-page report in pdf available at http://tinyurl.com/jffpskt

5. Evidence and Information Obtained

Introduction

5.1. The Gupta family, originating from India, arrived in South
Africa in 1993. They  established businesses in South Africa with
their notable business being a computer  assembly and distribution
company called Sahara Computers. The family is led by  three
brothers Ajay Gupta who is the eldest, Atul Gupta and Rajesh Gupta
who is  the youngest. Rajesh is commonly known as “Tony”. According
to a letter submitted  to my office, total revenues from their
business activities for the 2016 financial year  amounted to R2,6
billion, with government contracts contributing a total of R235
million of the revenues.

5.2. They later diversified their business interests into mining
through the acquisition of  JIC Mining Services, Shiva Uranium and
Tegeta Exploration and Resources,  Optimum Coal Mine and
Koornfontein Coal Mine. They also started a media  company called
TNA Media, which publishes a newspaper called The New Age and  owns
a television channel called ANN7.

5.3. The Gupta family are known friends of the President Zuma.
President Zuma has  openly acknowledged his friendship with them,
most notably during a discussion in  the National Assembly on 19
June 2013 where he admitted that members of the  Gupta family were
his friends. Mr Ajay Gupta (“Mr A. Gupta), also admitted to being
friends with President Zuma when I interviewed him on 4 October
2016.

5.4. President Zuma’s son, Mr Duduzane Zuma (“Mr D. Zuma”) is a
business partner of  the Gupta family through an entity called
Mabengela Investments (“Mabengela”).  Mabengela has a 28.5% interest
in Tegeta Exploration and Resources (“Tegeta”).  Mr D. Zuma is a
Director of Mabengela.

5.5. Members of the Gupta family and the President Zuma’ son, Mr D.
Zuma, have  secured major contracts with Eskom, a major State owned
company, through  Tegeta. Tegeta has secured a 10 year coal supply
agreement (“CSA”) with Eskom  SOC Limited (“Eskom”) to supply coal
to the Majuba Power station. The entity has  also secured contracts
with Eskom to supply coal to the Hendrina and Arnot power  stations.

5.6.  Eskom CEO, Mr Brian Molefe (“Mr Molefe”) is friends with
members of the Gupta  family. Mr A. Gupta admitted during my
interview with him on 4 October 2016 that  Mr Molefe is his “very
good friend” and often visits his home in Saxonwold.

5.7. The New Age newspaper has also secured contracts with some
provincial  government departments and state owned entities, most
notably Eskom and South  African Airways (“SAA”).

5.8. The Gupta family recently purchased shares in an entity called
VR Laser Services  (“VR Laser”). VR Laser has major contracts with
Denel SOC Limited (“Denel”), a  State owned armaments manufacturing
company. VR Laser has also partnered with  Denel to apparently seek
business opportunities abroad.

5.9. During March this year, Mr Jonas issued a media statement
alleging that he was  offered the position of Minister of Finance by
members of the Gupta family in  exchange for executive decisions
favourable to the business interests of the Gupta  family, an offer
which he declined. The Gupta family has denied the allegations  made
by Mr Jonas.

5.10. At the time Mr Jonas is alleged to have been offered a Cabinet
post as Minister of  Finance, Mr Nene was occupying the post. Mr
Nene was removed from his post on  9 December 2015 by President Zuma
and replaced with Minister Van Rooyen.  Minister Van Rooyen was
replaced by Minister Gordhan on 14 December 2015 as  Minister of
Finance, 4 days after his appointment.

5.11. Following Mr Jonas’ statement, Ms Mentor also issued a
statement to the press  alleging that she was also offered a Cabinet
post by members of the Gupta family in  exchange for executive
decisions favourable to their business interests, an  allegation
denied by the Gupta family.

5.12. The former CEO of Government Communication and Information
System (“GCIS”),  Mr Themba Maseko also issued a statement alleging
that members of the Gupta  family pressured him into placing
government advertisements in the New Age  newspaper. Mr Maseko
further alleged that President Zuma asked him to “help” the  Gupta
family.

**********************************************

What the “State Capture” report tells us about Zuma, the Guptas, and
corruption in South Africa

Lynsey Chutel and Lily Kuo

Quartz Africa, November 2, 2016

What the “State Capture” report tells us about Zuma, the Guptas, and corruption in South Africa

It’s the report that confirms South Africa’s worst fears about
corruption: that the state has been captured. In 355 pages, former
public protector Thuli Madonsela and her team of investigators
outline in detail just how much control the Gupta family, a wealthy
Indian immigrant family, has over South Africa’s resources. The
Guptas’ close friend, president Jacob Zuma, as well as two ministers
implicated in the report, went to court to stop its release. But it
was finally released on Nov. 2, after protests and a court battle.

The report is potentially damning for Zuma, offering proof that he
sanctioned the use of state companies for personal enrichment. But
now the real reckoning begins, as a web of corruption around Zuma,
the Guptas, and at least three ministers begins to unravel.

Hiring and firing ministers in the Guptas’ house

The report contains a detailed interview with deputy finance
minister Mcebisi Jonas, who alleges that the Guptas offered him the
finance minister’s post weeks before Zuma was to shuffle three
finance ministers in one week. Jonas was driven to the Guptas’ home
by the president’s son Duduzane Zuma, where he was met by Ajay
Gupta.

Ajay Gupta allegedly told Jonas they’d been keeping tabs on him and
wanted him to be their man in the treasury. Ajay Gupta revealed that
they’d already made 6 billion rand ($443 million) from dealings with
the government, and wanted to make at least 2 billion rand more
(about $147 million). When Jonas refused, they tried to sweeten the
deal with 600 million rand (about $44 million) and an extra 600,000
rand ($44,318) in cash, right there. Jonas declined the money, and
months later became the whistle-blower that launched this
investigation when he revealed his story in March.

Vytjie Mentor, who came out after Jonas with an account of how the
Guptas tried to offer her the job of minister of public enterprises,
in charge of state-owned companies, also details her exchange with
the family. According to the report (p.89), Mentor was told during a
meeting in October last year at the Guptas’ home that she would go
from an ordinary parliamentarian to cabinet minister in a week. All
she had to do was make sure South African Airways dropped their
route between Johannesburg and Mumbai, making way for the Gupta-
linked carrier Jet Airways. Mentor declined. She was surprised to
see the president himself emerge from an adjacent room, who said
“it’s okay girl…take care of yourself,” as he personally escorted
her out.

According to the report, the Guptas also have the power to fire
ministers seen as stumbling blocks to their plans. Former finance
minister Nhlanhla Nene’s insistence on sticking to the rules cost
him his job. As did Barbara Hogan, former minister of public
enterprises, who refused to allow outside influence in appointments
of board members of state-owned South African Airways, Transnet, the
national rail, and Eskom, the state power utility (p. 89, 90). On an
official visit to India, Hogan said she was shocked to find the
Guptas running proceedings. She was relieved of her duties a few
months later.

Des van Rooyen, the unknown parliamentarian who became finance
minister for a few days after Nene, went to court in a bid to delay
the report, fearing it would implicate him. And it has. His phone
records show that van Rooyen visited the Guptas’ home seven days in
a row before he was appointed as finance minister. He was later
moved to a less prominent ministry. Van Rooyen has denied any
wrongdoing.

Negotiating on behalf of the Guptas

Mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane also tried to have the report
delayed, saying it was hastily prepared and that he had not been
given time to respond. According to the report (p. 124, 125), Zwane
travelled to Switzerland on behalf of the Guptas to smooth over
their acquisition of a troubled coal mine from multinational
commodity trader Glencore, helping the Guptas become one of the main
coal suppliers for state utility Eskom. Zwane allegedly helped
facilitate the deal by accompanying delegates from a Gupta resources
company, Tegeta, to Zurich, according to a flight itinerary obtained
by the public protector. Zwane could not be interviewed in time for
the report, but should be allowed to give his version in subsequent
investigations, the report says.

Eskom: Keeping the lights on for the Guptas

Eskom, accused of overly cozy ties with the Guptas featured heavily
in the report, with 916 mentions. Lynn Brown, who became the
minister in charge of South Africa’s state owned enterprises, is
implicated in the report for allowing the appointment of a lame-duck
board that turned a blind eye to murky deals made at the energy
monopoly.

But it’s Eskom’s chief executive, Brian Molefe, who comes out
looking the worst. According to cell phone records, Molefe had 58
phone calls with the eldest of the Gupta brothers, Ajay Gupta,
between August 2015 and March 2016, just before the Guptas purchased
South Africa’s Optimum coal mine for 2.15 billion rand ($160
million). Eskom, which prepaid the Gupta’s Tegeta Exploration and
Resources 600 million rand for coal, had been accused of helping to
finance the Guptas’ coal mine deal through preferential treatment.

The report concludes (p, 20), “it appears that the sole purpose of
awarding contracts to Tegeta to supply Arnot Power Station, was made
solely for the purposes of funding Tegeta and enabling Tegeta to
purchase all shares in OCH [Optimum Coal Holdings]. The only entity
which appears to have benefited from Eskom’s decisions with regards
to [the Optimum coal mine deal] was Tegeta.” Cellphone records also
put Molefe in the Saxonwold area, where the Guptas live, 19 times
between August and November 2015 and phone calls between Molefe and
Ronica Ragavan, head of the Gupta’s holding company, Oakbay
Investments. Justifying these calls and visits, Ajay Gupta told
Madonsela in an interview last month that Molefe is his “very good
friend” who often visits the Gupta compound. But Madonsela says
these records show “a distinct line of communication between Molefe
of Eskom, the Gupta family and directors of their companies… These
links cannot be ignored as Mr Molefe did not declare his
relationship with the Guptas.” Eskom hasrefuted any allegations of
wrongdoing. “We do believe everything that we’ve done so far was
above board,” spokesman for the utility, Khulu Phasiwe, told a local
radio station.

Advertising with the Guptas

Themba Maseko, former chief executive of government’s communications
agency, in charge of a media buying budget of 600 million rand a
year, said he was pressured by the Gupta family to place government
ads in their newspaper the New Age. Maseko was also one of the
whistleblowers who took his story to the media in March.

In an interview with Madonsela in August, Maseko said he was on his
way to a meeting with the Guptas in late 2010 when the president
called him on the phone to say, “The Gupta brothers need your help,
please help them.” During the meeting with Ajay Gupta, Gupta told
Maseko that he wanted government advertising channeled to his new
newspaper, the New Age. According to Maseko’s account, the
government official told Gupta that he could not decide where
government departments advertise. Gupta responded that this was not
a problem. He would instruct the departments to advertise in the
newspaper

According to Maseko’s account, Gupta instructed Maseko to tell him
“where the funds are and inform the departments to provide the funds
to you and if they refuse, we will deal with them. If you have a
problem with any department, we will summon ministers here.” Later
when Maseko refused to take a meeting with a New Age staff, Gupta
told Maseko, “I will talk to your seniors in government and you will
be sorted out.” Maseko was fired a few months later.

A bright spot: Integrity in the Treasury

The report shows how the Guptas’ plans were repeatedly thwarted by
officials in the treasury (p. 131, 132, and 94). The National
Treasury, in charge of approving deals linked to state-owned
enterprises, stuck to the rules of procurement and public finance.
Treasury officials questioned the Eskom coal deal with Tegeta.
Unable to stop the initial deal, they succeeded in blocking an
extension of the Tegeta contract. These obstructions appear to have
frustrated the Guptas and cost Nene his job. Many speculate that
current finance minister Pravin Gordhan’songoing legal battles are
related to the treasury’s resistance to the Guptas influence.

What next?

Zuma, the ministers, and the Guptas have yet to respond to the
damning allegations in the report. Madonsela has since left office,
with state capture report serving as her parting shot in a seven-
year battle against corruption. Still, she’s left instructions on
how to use with her findings. Her successor, who has already
started, should bring potentially criminal accusations in the report
to the National Prosecuting Authority and the police’s Directorate
for Priority Crime Investigation, better known as the Hawks.

Madonsela has also recommended that the report be taken further by a
commission of inquiry, headed by a judge appointed by the chief
justice of South Africa’s constitutional court, Mogoeng Mogoeng.
There are concerns that the prosecuting authority and the Hawks have
been compromised. (They have spearheaded the fraud case against
finance minister Gordhan.) But the public’s hopes lie in the chief
justice, who has spoken out harshly against the abuse of power
before.

“Public office bearers ignore their constitutional obligations at
their peril. This is so because constitutionalism‚ accountability
and the rule of law constitute the sharp and mighty sword that
stands ready to chop the ugly head of impunity off its stiffened
neck,” Mogeng said in March when he ruled against the president over
his use public funds used to renovate his personal compound in
Nkandla.

*******************************************************

How the state capture controversy has influenced South Africa’s
nuclear build

Harmut Winkler

The Conversation, May 26, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/jgrjcz8

South Africa is facing a critical decision that could see it
investing about R1 trillion – or US$60 billion to $70 billion – in a
fleet of new nuclear power stations. Proponents argue that it will
greatly increase electrical base-load capacity and generate
industrial growth. But opponents believe the high cost would cripple
the country economically.

What should be an economic decision has now been clouded by
controversy, with political pressure to push through the nuclear
build and the increasingly apparent rewards it would bring to
politically linked individuals.

The nuclear expansion programme needs to be considered exceptionally
carefully given that the required financial commitment is roughly
equal to the total South African annual tax revenue. Loan repayments
could place a devastating long-term burden on the public and on the
economy as a whole.

South Africa’s energy needs

South Africa is in the process of massively expanding and
modernising its electricity generation capacity. The government-
driven Integrated Resource Plan aims to increase total capacity from
42,000MW (peak demand of 39,000MW) to 85,000MW (peak demand of
68,000MW) in 2030. A key component of this plan is the construction
of facilities to produce 9,600MW of nuclear power. However, this
aspect of the plan has been challenged.

The biggest concern is that nuclear power is too expensive for the
country. The debate gained momentum when the 2013 update to the
2010-2030 electricity plan found that electricity demand is growing
slower than originally anticipated. Peak demand in 2030 is now
expected to range between 52,000 MW and 61,000 MW. There is
consequently widespread belief that new nuclear power stations can
be delayed considerably.

South Africa’s energy generation options

South Africa has had remarkable success with speedy, cost-effective
installation of renewable energy power plants. In addition to this,
technologies for harvesting South Africa’s plentiful wind and solar
energy resources are rapidly becoming cheaper, raising the question
of whether the country should not invest more in these options
rather than in going nuclear.

The argument that nuclear energy provides a stable base load,
independent of weather conditions, is mitigated by improvements in
energy storage technologies. But also by the fact that South Africa,
with its large coal power production, has a proportionally higher
base load than many highly developed industrialised countries. The
pro-nuclear option is therefore not unavoidable, as nuclear
proponents suggest, but rather a matter for thorough economic
consideration.

Zuma and the Russians

The nuclear debate gained a political dimension when President Jacob
Zuma and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, started to develop
an unusually close relationship. It culminated in an announcement
that the Russian nuclear developer, Rosatom, had been awarded the
potentially highly lucrative contract to build the new reactors. The
agreement was later denied.

Rosatom was considered the preferred contender, with other bidders
only there to lend the process legitimacy, according to some
observers. The lack of transparency surrounding the process, coupled
with a history of corruption in South African mega-projects like the
arms deal, has made the whole scheme seem suspicious to the broader
public.

A thickening plot

A crucial thread in this saga involves the Shiva uranium mine, about
30km north-west of Pretoria, the country’s executive capital. It
originally belonged to a company called Uranium One, a subsidiary of
Russia’s Rosatom. It was sold in 2010 to Oakbay Resources, a company
controlled by members of the politically connected Gupta family and
the president’s son, in a deal that greatly surprised economists.

The mine was deemed unprofitable and thus unattractive to other
mining companies. But it was still considered worth a whole lot more
than the R270 million paid by Oakbay. The mine would, however,
become highly profitable if it became the uranium supplier to the
new nuclear power stations. Oakbay and its associates therefore have
a very strong incentive for this nuclear build to happen.

It is here that the nuclear build drama feeds into the recent major
controversy surrounding alleged state capture, meaning a corrupt
system where state officials owe their allegiance to politically
connected oligarchs rather than the public interest. This was
highlighted by the shock dismissal of Finance Minister Nhanhla Nene,
a reported nuclear build sceptic, but also by subsequent allegations
of ministerial positions being offered to people by members of the
Gupta family.

Political, legal and civil opposition

The nuclear build’s association with the Zuma faction in the ruling
African National Congress (ANC) will be a political hot potato for
decades to come. The whole scandal also offers potential opportunity
to opposition parties. With increasing evidence of individuals
benefiting, opposition parties have found another spot to exploit,
as they did with Nkandla. A post-Zuma government would find it most
convenient to simply dissociate itself from the whole scheme.

The South African courts have been used very effectively by pressure
groups in the past. Already a number of environmental groups have
initiated legal applications, and these might end up being escalated
to the Supreme and Constitutional Courts. This will delay any
building initiative by years.

The South African experience with the 2010 World Cup has shown that
mega-projects can come to fruition when there is broad overall
support for the initiative. At the same time, South Africans can be
very disruptive and obstructive when this is not the case. For
example, the public opposition to e-tolling, an electronic toll
collection on certain roads.

The two leading opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the
Economic Freedom Fighters, have already expressed their strong
criticism of the planned nuclear build. Their supporters and civil
society in general have demonstrated their capacity for mobilisation
around specific issues. So the potential for an anti-nuclear protest
movement cannot be discounted.

A negative nuclear outlook

Building these plants is a risky business proposition, especially
for Rosatom, which is implicated in the developing scandal. The
recent political mood swing against state capture and a likely
credit rating downgrade add to the risk.

Rosatom has suggested a nuclear build financing option that
effectively amounts to it providing a loan. It is, however,
conceivable that a future government may not honour debt repayments
if there is a view that the construction deal was secured
irregularly.

The narrow public support base and downright hostility in some
quarters to a nuclear build has already effectively stalled local
nuclear construction plans. The level of controversy, high costs and
potential for further disruption mean that the planned
implementation could only proceed under severe social strain.

Such a scenario could very well cost the ruling ANC the 2019
national elections. And the party is becoming increasingly aware of
this. As such, it is posited that the nuclear build will not happen
any time as soon as planned.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
January 16, 2017 (170116)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

Ghana, Gambia, and Gabon are all small African countries with names
beginning with the letter “G,” which held presidential elections in
2016. But neither the electoral landscapes nor the electoral
outcomes can fruitfully be analyzed without giving greater weight to
the contrasts than to the similarities. The same applies to the even
wider set of 14 African countries with presidential elections last
year, or the 8 so far scheduled to hold elections in 2017.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/afr1701.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/afr1701.php

As this Bulletin is published in mid-January, the most pressing
uncertainty about Africa’s elections is for Gambia, where outgoing
President Yahya Jammeh reversed his decision to accept his election
defeat in December (see
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/gamb1612.php), meeting with
widespread condemnation both internationally and domestically.
And for the latest news as of this morning, see
http://tinyurl.com/h2p3vzn and follow this Gambian news site
(http://jollofnews.com).

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains several summary commentaries on
Africa’s elections in 2016 and 2017: Vera Songwe on the contrasting
outcomes in Gabon, Ghana, and Gambia; Abdi Latif Dahir on five
elections to watch in 2017; Kim Yi Dionne reviewing public opinion
on the wide variations in the extent of freedom to organize in 36
different African countries. Also included are several links to
additional recent analyses worth noting.

Also of related interest

Two videos of particular relevance, given the nomination of
ExxonMobil executive Rex Tillerson for U.S. Secretary of State. Both
Chad and Equatorial Guinea held elections in 2016, with leaders who
have been in power for 26 and 37 years respectively continuing
in their positions.

Rachel Maddow on Chad and ExxonMobil December 13, 2016 – 16 minutes
video: http://tinyurl.com/jp57m7z
transcript: http://tinyurl.com/gn5yqvh

Rachel Maddow on Equatorial Guinea and ExxonMobil January 12, 2017 –
4 minutes
video: http://tinyurl.com/hqwc73m
transcript not yet available

List of Africa’s rulers longest in office, updated for 2017
https://qz.com/852384/

For general reference and news related to African elections

Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa
Resources includes an election calendar for each year beginning in
2005

Election Calendar

Afrobarometer – extensive data and analysis on public opinion in 36
African countries
http://afrobarometer.org

Quartz Africa
https://qz.com/africa/ – sign up for their weekly brief at
https://qz.com/africa-weekly-brief/

AllAfrica.com
http://allafrica.com/governance

——————————————————–

The Trump Election: Intersecting Explanations

An intersectional database of articles and books, compiled by
AfricaFocus editor William Minter

http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/trump-win-reasons.php

* 21 relevant explanations, any of which arguably sufficient to have
tipped the balance of the narrowly decided electoral college outcome

* As of January 15, 2017: 244 recommended articles, 23 books for
deeper background

* Voter suppression is among the most important factors, but also
among the least prominent in the public debate. See
http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/voter-suppression.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Africa’s mixed political transitions in the 3 Gs: Gabon, the Gambia,
and Ghana

Vera Songwe

Brookings Institution blog, December 22, 2016

http://www.brookings.edu – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/j3reoma

Africa has gone through a number of leadership transitions in 2016
and with each one the edifice that will shape Africa’s leadership
and political transition process is being molded. 2016 has been
another of year progress on the African leadership transition front.
This year there have been 16 elections, in seven of the elections
there was an effective leadership transition and over 60 percent of
the elections were conducted in a free and transparent manner with
satisfactory citizen involvement and little or no unrest–such as in
Ghana or Cabo Verde.  Overall, the leadership transitions have been
largely peaceful, constitutional, and transparent. However, the
experiences across countries and sub-regions have been quite varied
and provide us with many lessons for the future. I will use Gabon,
Gambia, and Ghana (the “three Gs”) to illustrate these experiences.

Three elections, in Gabon in August, and the Gambia and Ghana in
December, are shaping the narrative of this dynamic process and
providing important lessons for the transition process. First, the
struggle for change continues: While Africa is slowly moving towards
more participatory political transitions, the fight has not
completely won. In addition, the growing importance and maturity of
electoral commissions; citizens’ increasing awareness that their
votes matter; the slow but certain move away from tribal politics to
issues politics; and now regional, rather than foreign, ownership
around leadership transitions all contribute towards the deepening
of democracy on the continent. Each of the countries–Gabon, the
Gambia, and Ghana–have tackled these issues differently.

The Struggle for Change Persists

Ghana is the pride of Africa when it comes to democratic
transitions. Once again, its most recent election has proven this
point.  Despite the tense and intensely fought campaign both parties
continue to pledge respect for the process. Indeed, there is much to
celebrate around Africa’s leadership transitions, but much remains
to perfect the process the continent over. This year many elections
were held freely and fairly on the continent, and both incumbents
and new leaders were elected to office–including Benin, Cabo Verde,
São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zambia for example. And in an
unprecedented move the President of Mauritania and Angola all
declared they will not seek re-elections at the end of the term. A
very positive and encouraging trend if the pronouncements come to
pass.

However, in a number of countries the old has not given way to the
new, and the evolution of democracy is still in motion with too-
often deadly consequences for the citizens in Burundi, Gabon, and
the Gambia to name a few. These examples demonstrate that the
concept of leadership transition has not yet been fully adopted. A
number of lessons can be drawn from these latter experiences. The
populations are increasingly more vocal about transparency of
elections. Both sides incumbent and opposition have increasingly
equal chances of getting their voices heard and results tend to be
closer in these countries. There is still a need for vigilance, and
the tendency to slip remains. Peaceful leadership transitions are
not yet the norm.

Election Commissions: Strong, Credible, and Independent Institutions
are Emerging

In the three Gs, the role of the electoral commissions has been a
determining factor. In fact, electoral commission heads are
increasingly becoming the new villains and/or heroes in the African
struggle for peaceful leadership transitions.

In Gabon, the head of the electoral commission’s independence was
largely questioned primarily by the opposition and the people of
Gabon, as well as international election observers. Notably, the
final results of the election were not announced by the head of the
electoral commission, as constitutionally stated, but by the
minister of the interior–an institution with no independence from
the incumbent. Gabon’s incumbent President Ali Bongo won by 49.9
percent over 48.2 percent for his rival Jean Ping, less than a 6,000
vote difference and suspiciously high turnout in Bongo’s home
province. Violence and protests erupted not long after the
announcement.

The Gambia’s electoral commission performed and fared much better:
Three months before the election, the head of the electoral
commission Alieu Momarr Njai pledged in a memorable but unpublicized
speech to uphold the integrity of the commission and protect the
integrity of the process.  During the launch of the electoral
process he said:

Election results may be rigged to predetermine who will win or lose,
and election may be disrupted, casting doubt on the legitimacy of
the process, but I stand here today to pronounce to you that, as far
as our concerted efforts are in play, this will never be the case in
our dear country. The Independent Electoral Commission believes that
an election without integrity subverts the purpose of a democratic
election, and cannot be considered fair and equitable. The IEC will
ever concentrate on conducting free and fair elections. This, I
believe we will ever achieve by upholding governing principles such
as: respect for principles of electoral democracy; ethical conduct;
accuracy and transparency.

The people of the Gambia and many others did not expect such clarity
of vision from the head of the electoral commission, and many
dismissed this as normal election propaganda. However, Njai kept his
word. He pronounced the elections results in favor of the opposition
candidate Adama Barrow and called for President Yahya Jammeh, who
has been in power for over 22 years, to step down, eliciting pride
and jubilation from the people of the Gambia. The Gambia’s troubles
have instead come from Jammeh’s withdrawal of his concession and
determination to stay in power.

In Ghana, the head of the election commission benefitted from a
robust and solid system, which has a history of inclusion,
transparency, and most of participation by all members of the
political exercise. The continuous process undertaken by the
Ghanaian electoral commission to continuously educate the electorate
and the political parties is clearly a lesson for the rest of the
continent on how to build trust and interact with the population.

However, even in Ghana there are lessons to learn from the election,
such as how to manage delays in the announcement of the election
results and or glitches in the system on election day. In Ghana the
commission needed more time to ensure everyone eligible to vote had
voted and to count the votes.  Tensions began to mount as the
population waited for the elections results to be proclaimed, both
sides began proclaiming victory and the supporters of each candidate
began filling the streets.

This could have led to severe unrest. However, the communication of
the election committee head asking the people for patience while all
the votes were counted was an example of good election management.
The people could only heed to this request because of the trust
built by the commission and a legitimate sense of ownership of the
commission.  Therefore, while independently elected, the first task
of every election commission is to build trust with the people. As
African countries prepare for more elections this should be an area
that gets special attention.

Ownership: The People’s Voice, The Continent’s Voice

Ethnic politics is slowly giving way to issues politics. The economy
is taking center stage in elections. In Ghana, as in the Gambia, the
last few years have seen citizens suffer under the weight of
weakening currencies, erosion of purchasing power by over 50
percent, increasing poverty, joblessness, and interest rates above
25 percent. Similarly, the rise of corruption, noted by Ghanaian
President John Mahama in his concession speech, undermined all the
achievements of Mahama presidency–and most of all his struggle to
give affordable and reliable power to the people of Ghana. The
results of these elections increasingly show that while there will
always remain a thread of local politics in elections, the
electorate is becoming more sophisticated and are voting on issues
broader than ethnic origins. Citizens are more engaged and are
owning the election agenda.

African leaders are also increasingly more active in the resolution
of African leadership transition issues. During the crisis period of
the Gabon elections the French and the European Union were the most
active and vocal voices. The French president called for a recount
and the EU asked that all results be published, but Chadian
President Idriss Déby, as head of the African Union, was the central
mediator of the proceedings. In the case of the Gambia, the African
Union alongside five other presidents of ECOWAS countries have taken
it upon themselves to mediate a settlement of the impasse. The
acknowledgement and ownership of the transition agenda by Africa’s
leaders is an important part of assuring peace and stability during
transition crises.  The cases of Burundi and the Gambia should
provide lessons on how to make such negations successful. What
incentives could be put in place to minimize difficult transitions?

As the Ghanaians celebrate the peaceful election of new President
Nana Akufo Addo, as President Bongo of Gabon settles into his second
term, and as the Gambians wait anxiously for a resolution, the
continent must heed the lessons of these three transitions and begin
putting in place systems that allow citizens more ownership of the
process, ensure that election commissions are truly independent and
equipped to build trust with citizens, and encourage candidates that
acknowledge the increasing sophistication of the electorate so
campaign messages must have content and can no longer rely solely on
identity politics.

**********************************************************

The five African elections to watch out for in 2017

Abdi Latif Dahir

January 03, 2017 Quartz Africa

The five African elections to watch out for in 2017

Last year, a public survey of elections by the Pan-African research
network Afrobarometer showed Africans distrusted national electoral
commissions and the quality of their elections. Just over 40% of
Africans in 36 countries believed that the last elections in their
country were free and fair; 25% said they trusted their electoral
commissions “a lot”; and many described elections where bribery was
rampant, media bias persisted, and voters were often threatened with
violence at the polls.

Yet elections across the continent are always markers of important
democratic milestones and are followed closely by observers and
citizens alike. In 2016, congratulations poured into Ghana after the
country elected Nana Akufo-Addo as its new president. Several
incumbent presidents, including Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Zambia’s
Edgar Lungu and Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon all won re-election too–
despite protests from opposition members, violence, and internet
shutdowns. And after 22 years in power, The Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh,
who once said he will rule for “one billion years” conceded defeat
live on television, only to reject the outcome of the elections a
few days later.

In 2017, more African countries will pursue the democratic path by
conducting presidential, legislative and municipal elections. Some
281 sworn lawmakers–they are 347 legislators in total–will kick
things off in Somalia by voting for a president later on Jan. 24.
Incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is considered a
frontrunner and is among dozens of candidates who are vying for the
presidency.

Here are the key elections to watch as millions of people head to
the polls.

1. Rwanda

When: Aug. 4, 2017

President Paul Kagame will be seeking a third, seven-year term since
winning the country’s second election in 2010 with 93% of the vote.
Dubbed as the “global elite’s favorite strongman” and the “darling
tyrant,” Kagame is a media-savvy politician who uses his sleek
website and over 1.5 million Twitter followers to propagate his
message of progress and development. Kagame is also credited with
transforming the landlocked nation’s economic development, boosting
youth employment and trade, reducing poverty and advocating for
technology as a tool for prosperity.

Yet, the country’s transformation under Kagame has come with a
catch. Kagame is accused of muzzling the press, restricting free
speech, and silencing dissidents–in some cases, even allegedly
assassinating opponents who fled to Uganda and South Africa.

But the upcoming election will point more to the future of Rwanda
than to its troubled past. In 2015, a constitutional amendment
allowed Kagame to run for this new term and two more five-year terms
after that, meaning that he could stay in power till 2034. The
controversial move was criticized by many in the international
community and questioned whether Kagame was even interested in
fostering a new generation of leaders to take on the mantle of
leadership. “I don’t think that what we need is an eternal leader,”
Kagame said when he announced his candidacy early last year. And in
2017, he will have to work hard to prove to his critics that he
doesn’t count on being one.

2. Kenya

When: Aug. 8, 2017

Kenyans will go to the polls to elect almost 1900 public officials
including the president, senators, county governors, members of the
national and county assemblies, and women county representatives.
This is yet another high-stakes election, which is tilted in favor
of incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.
The two, however, will go into election facing an energized
opposition who have used the administration’s failings as a rallying
point.

Since Kenyatta came to power in 2013, the country has been bedeviled
with deadly terrorist attacks; teachers, nurses and doctor strikes;
failing banks; and several corruption scandals that have drained
tens of millions of dollars from government coffers.

Even though the opposition is yet to pick a candidate, Kenyatta will
likely face Raila Odinga, a longtime opposition figure who has been
angling to become president for almost 20 years. The opposition has
also accused the country’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission of being inept and biased, with a British court recently
convicting two British businessmen of bribing election commissioners
to get contracts for printing ballots.

Like previous elections in the past two decades, the fear of
violence, ethnic polarization, and escalating political tensions
looms large. Kenya walks a tight rope and depending on how the IEBC
conducts the election, might see it maintain its fragile democracy
or slide into yet another gloomy post-election period.

3. Angola

When: Aug. 2017

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos arrives for an EU Africa Summit in
Lisbon, Sunday Dec. 9, 2007. European and African leaders are
scheduled to sign a strategic partnership agreement on Sunday, after
a two-day summit marked by tensions over human rights in Zimbabwe.

In Dec. 2016, president Jose Eduardo dos Santos surprised many
observers by announcing that he will step down as president before
the 2017 elections. The ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation
of Angola party has elected João Lourenco, a former defense
minister, as vice president ahead of the next parliamentary
elections. In Angola, the leader of the winning party automatically
becomes president.

But Angola is still dominantly a one-party state, ruled by dos
Santos and his family, who have amassed wealth and power over the
last four decades. Yet, the fourth elections in the country since it
gained independence from Portugal in 1975, come at a time when the
country has been hit by the slump in global crude prices–
diminishing its foreign exchange revenues. The 2017 elections will
test the maturity of Angola’s democracy and if successful, confer a
measure of legitimacy on its government

4. Liberia

When: Oct. 10, 2017

After 10 years in office, it is the end of the road for Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia, and Africa’s first female president.
Sirleaf leaves office after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, dealing
with the Ebola crisis, passing a Freedom of Information bill, and
taking on the taxing effort of rebuilding a country ravaged by war.
But by Oct. 25, 2017, Liberia will have a new president-elect, who
will take the mantle of an economy battered by low global commodity
prices and post-Ebola decline in official inflows.

Former Liberian soccer player and current Senator George Weah smiles
after addressing thousands of supporters of the Congress for
Democratic Change (CDC) party who petitioned him to contest
Liberia’s Presidential elections in 2017, at Party headquarters in
Monrovia, Liberia, 28 April 2016. George Weah contested the 2005 and
2011 Presidential elections, but lost to incumbent Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf on both occasions. Sirleaf’s second term in office will end
in 2017.

More than 1.9 million registered voters will elect presidential and
legislative candidates from 22 political parties, according to the
National Elections Commission. A key contender in the elections is
George Weah, an ex-footballer who is considered by Fifa as the
highest-ranking African footballer of the 20th century, and whose
first presidential bid failed after he lost to Sirleaf. The former
AC Milan footballer and current senator has promised to increase the
national budget, work on religious harmony and support vocational
education.

Weah could also face off with Jewel Howard-Taylor, the ex-wife of
former Liberian president and warlord Charles Taylor. Jewel,
considered the second most powerful woman in Liberian politics, is a
twice-elected senator from Bong County, which has the third-highest
number of registered voters in Liberia. Vice president Joseph Boakai
will also run for president on the government’s record.

5. The Democratic Republic of Congo

When: TBD 2017

Moise Katumbi, governor of Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-
rich Katanga province, arrives for a two-day mineral conference in
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo March 24, 2014.

On New Year’s Eve, the government and opposition members in the DR
Congo appeared to have signed a deal that could see president Joseph
Kabila step down after the next election. The agreement came after
deadly protests, arrests and internet shutdown that followed the end
of Kabila’s constitutionally-mandated second term on Dec. 19.

As part of the deal, a transitional government will be appointed by
March, and the elections will take place before the end of the year.
If this does take place, it will be the first peaceful transfer of
power since independence in 1960. A peaceful election will also
avert a return to war in the populous, mineral-rich country, where
some five million people lost their lives in the civil war that
lasted between 1994 and 2003. Moise Katumbi, a popular politician
and opposition member, is expected to run to replace Kabila.

The challenge to hold the vote in 2017 will also be enormous, given
that the electoral commission once said that it needed at least 17
months to complete registration processes and hold the elections.
Beyond the election, a new government and president will face the
task of addressing economic, humanitarian and political
instabilities that persist all across the country.

**************************************************************

Only 7 percent of citizens in this African country [Swaziland] feel
free to join political organizations
Kim Yi Dionne,  Afrobarometer Blog, Dec. 16, 2016

http://www.afrobarometer.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hdk9rlc

“Afrobarometer measures citizens’ perceptions of freedom to assemble
by asking: “In this country, how free are you to join any political
organization you want?” Survey participants could answer completely
free, somewhat free, not very free or not at all free.

On average, across the 36 African countries where Afrobarometer
conducts its nationally representative public opinion surveys, a
majority (58 percent) reported that they feel “completely free” to
join any political organization they want.

But citizens’ perceptions of freedom to assemble varied across the
continent. While 85 percent of Senegalese felt completely free to
join political organizations, only 7 percent felt that same way in
Swaziland.

Why is Swaziland so far below its peers in Africa in protecting its
citizens’ freedom to assemble?

Plainly, Swaziland is not a democracy. It holds elections and has a
parliament, but real power is vested in the last absolute monarch in
Africa, King Mswati III. King Mswati III has ruled Swaziland since
1986, a couple of years after the death of his father, King Sobhuza
II.”

**************************************************************

Additional links worth noting

Brett L. Carter, “Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s
embarrassing attempt to ingratiate himself to Donald Trump,” Jan 9,
2017
http://africasacountry.com – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jnthw78

Nic Cheeseman, “Africa’s real story of 2017 will be of close
elections and activists struggling to hold governments accountable,”
Jan 10, 2017
http://www.africanarguments.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jtgt2tb

Sarah Brierley and George Ofosu, “What will Ghanaians expect from
their new president,” Afrobarometer blog, Jan 6, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/zxb5kfz

Jesse Weaver Shipley, “The market decides if we are free,” Africa is
a Country, Jan. 16, 2017
On President Nana Akufo-Addo’s inauguration speech in Ghana
http://tinyurl.com/hqz7msy

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
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or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
October 18, 2016 (161018)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Ghana is in a debt crisis. Despite having had significant amounts
of debt canceled a decade ago, the country is losing around 30% of
government revenue in external debt payments each year. Such huge
payments are only possible because Ghana has been able to take on
more loans from institutions such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), which are used to pay the interest on debts to previous
lenders, whilst the overall size of the debt increases. ”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/gh1610.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/gh1610.php

The downward spiral of debt, whether for individuals or for
countries, is commonly driven by loans that are risky and
unrealistic, a phenomenon for which both lenders and borrowers bear
responsibility. Structural vulnerability and misleading expectations
fuel a cycle in which interest payments increase the debt while
payments become increasingly difficult. A new report from the
Jubilee Debt Campaign, UK, with a coalition of non-governmental
organizations in Ghana, provides a clear illustration from a country
that is in many other respects a positive model for African
political and economic progress.

Nevertheless, the report documents, Ghana is again falling into a
debt trap. The causes include 1) continued dependence on primary
commodities with volatile pricing on international markets and (2)
bad judgement by both the Ghanaian government and by international
lenders pitching high-interest loans which can only be paid under
optimistic and unrealistic economic scenarios for the period of the
loan. For example, according to the report, there were three
successive $1 billion bond issues from 2013 to 2015, the latest at
an interest rate of 10.75%. Strikingly, the World Bank provided a
guarantee for the latest bond despite its own rules blocking such
risky loans.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes selected excerpts from the press
release, executive summary, and full report. The full report is
available at  http://tinyurl.com/zb8rm7u

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Ghana, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/ghana.php

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on debt and related issues of
international capital flows, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“World Bank broke its own rules over high-interest loans to Ghana,”
Excerpt from Jubilee Debt Campaign, UK, press release, October 9,
2016

http://tinyurl.com/hcgx8mg

According to Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Director of the Jubilee Debt
Campaign, UK:

“The underlying causes of Ghana’s new debt crisis are that neither
borrowers nor lenders have learned from past mistakes, and that its
economy remains reliant on primary commodities, leaving it extremely
vulnerable to the recent global commodity price crash. The people of
Ghana should not have to suffer through yet another debt crisis
while lenders who speculated on their economy reap huge profits out
of high interest loans guaranteed by the World Bank.

Ghana’s debts need to be reduced or restructured to escape another
prolonged debt trap, while regulation of lending, more responsible
borrowing, and tax justice are essential to end this cycle of debt
crises once and for all.”

******************************************************

The fall and rise of Ghana’s debt : How a new debt trap has been set

October 2016

Integrated Social Development Centre Ghana, Jubilee Debt Campaign
UK, SEND Ghana, VAZOBA Ghana, All-Afrikan Networking Community Link
for International Development, Kilombo Ghana and Abibimman
Foundation Ghana.

[Full report and executive summary available for download at
http://jubileedebt.org.uk – direct URL:  http://tinyurl.com/zb8rm7u]

Executive Summary [excerpts]

Ghana is in a debt crisis. Despite having had significant amounts of
debt canceled a decade ago, the country is losing around 30% of
government revenue in external debt payments each year. Such huge
payments are only possible because Ghana has been able to take on
more loans from institutions such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), which are used to pay the interest on debts to previous
lenders, whilst the overall size of the debt increases.

Ghana’s crisis is the result of a gradual increase in lending and
borrowing off the back of the discovery of oil and high commodity
prices. More money was then borrowed following the fall in the
price of oil and other commodities since 2013, to try to deal with
the impact of the commodity price crash, whilst the relative size
of the debt also grew because of the fall in the value of the
Ghanaian currency (the cedi) against the dollar ($).

The underlying causes of the return to a debt crisis are therefore
the continued dependence on commodity exports, as well as borrowing
and lending not being responsible enough, meaning that new debts do
not generate sufficient revenue to enable them to be repaid.

At the moment, all the costs of the crisis are being born by the
people of Ghana, and none by the lenders. This is unfair. Lenders
should carry their share of the cost of any irresponsible lending,
and of the change in circumstance caused by the fall in commodity
prices.

Additional action is also needed in order to prevent a repeat of
Ghana’s crisis, including changes on the part of the government and
lenders to ensure that loans are well used, and that more of the
revenue generated by the economy is turned into government revenue
by taxation.

Commodity dependence

Ghana’s dependence on commodities dates back to colonialism. …
[almost 60 years after independence] the country’s economy remains
dependent on the export of just three primary commodities – gold,
cocoa and now oil, which together make up over 80% of Ghana’s
exports.

Debt crisis and debt cancellation

This dependence on commodities was the central factor underlying a
debt crisis which was common to much of the global South in the
1980s and 1990s. Global commodity prices fell at the start of the
1980s, rapidly increasing the size of foreign debt payments which
could only be paid out of foreign earnings such as exports. As
commodity producers across the world expanded production in order
to pay debts, on the advice of the IMF and World Bank, commodity
prices stayed low for over 20 years.

From the mid-1990s the global Jubilee movement called for debt
cancellation, which led to the creation and enhancement of two debt
relief schemes run by the IMF and World Bank, the Heavily Indebted
Poor Countries initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative.

As a result of this debt cancellation, Ghana’s government external
debt fell from $6.6 billion in 2003 to $2.3 billion in 2006.
Significant improvements in education and healthcare followed, due
to money being saved and invested, alongside good government
policies, enhancing basic service provision. …

Commodity and lending boom, and manufacturing decline

However, Ghana’s dependence on commodities continued, and as prices
rose, this created more willingness for lenders to give loans off
the back of a growing economy.

Gold and cocoa prices began to increase from the mid- 2000s, as part
of a global boom in primary commodity prices heavily influenced by
Chinese growth and demand, on top of continued high consumption in
rich North American, European and Asian economies. Furthermore,
Ghana discovered oil, and began to produce and export it from 2011.
Collectively these changes led to a booming economy. Between 2006
and 2013 Ghana’s GDP per person grew by 44%. However, over the same
time period the number of people living below the national poverty
line only fell by 10%, a slower rate than in the previous seven
years when growth had been far lower. The reason was that much of
the proceeds of growth went to those with the highest incomes. For
every 1 cedi increase in income for the poorest 10%, the incomes of
the richest 10% increased by more than 9 cedi.

This rapid economic growth led to an increased willingness and
desire of various institutions to lend to Ghana, with a
corresponding willingness to borrow. Loans increased steadily from
2008 to 2011. In total, between 2007 and 2015 there were $18.2
billion of external loans and $8.7 billion of debt payments,
leaving $9.5 billion of the additional borrowing to be spent within
Ghana.

There is little transparency on what the loans were used for, from
both the government and lenders. The IMF figures on public capital
formation show no relationship with the increase in lending,
suggesting that whilst some loans could have been used for
investment, the increase in lending did not lead to an increase in
investment.

One of the more transparent lenders is the World Bank. Whilst they
provide little information before loans are agreed – preventing
civil society, media and politicians from holding the government
and the World Bank to account – they do publish details during and
after projects. Our analysis of these reports shows that 25% of
outstanding debt from Ghana to the World Bank is for projects where
the World Bank judged its own performance to be less than
satisfactory.

Moreover, between May 2007 and February 2015 Ghana was assessed by
the IMF and World Bank to be at moderate risk of debt distress, and
since March 2015 of high risk. The World Bank is only meant to give
half its support to moderate-risk countries as loans, and the other
half as grants; to high-risk countries it is only meant to make
grants. Yet between May 2007 and February 2015, 93% of World Bank
funding to Ghana was in the form of loans. And since March 2015
when the World Bank was meant to stop giving Ghana loans, it has
agreed $1.16 billion of new loans or loan guarantees.

With high commodity prices and the beginning of oil production,
export revenues increased rapidly from 2008 to 2012. Yet there is
evidence that manufacturing was crowded out. As a share of GDP,
manufacturing production halved from over 10% in 2006 to 5% by
2014.

Commodity price crash and the new debt trap

A combination of the recent fall in the price of commodities and the
loans not being used well enough to ensure they could be repaid has
now pushed Ghana back into debt crisis.

In early 2013 the price of gold fell significantly, as did the price
of oil from the start of 2014. Since the start of 2013 the value of
the cedi against the dollar has fallen by 50%. This has caused the
dollar-denominated size of Ghana’s economy to fall from $47.8
billion in 2013 to $36 billion in 2015.  Because external debts are
owed in dollars or other foreign currencies, this has in turn
increased the relative size of the debt and debt payments. External
debt has grown from $14.7 billion in 2013 to $21.1 billion in 2016
(an increase of 44%), yet because of the depreciation external debt
has gone up from 30% of GDP in 2013 to an expected 56% in 2016 (an
increase of 87%). One response to these economic shocks has been
for the government to borrow more money, most visibly through $1
billion of bond issues each in 2013, 2014 and 2015, all under
English law. This money has mainly been used to make external and
domestic debt interest and principal payments, and to fund ongoing
government costs, plugging the gap created by dollar revenue being
lower than expected. Less visibly, there has also been significant
borrowing directly from external financial institutions.

The interest rates on the new debts are high, rising from 7.9% for
the 2013 bond issue to 10.75% for the October 2015 one. For the
October 2015 bond issue, the World Bank once again broke its own
rules by guaranteeing $400 million of payments if the Ghanaian
government fails to make them. The World Bank is not meant to give
such guarantees for governments assessed as at high risk of debt
distress, which Ghana had been for the previous seven months. The
high interest rate and guarantee mean that if the Ghanaian
government were to pay the interest every year until 2024, then
default on all other payments from 2025, including the principal,
the bond speculators would still have made $90 million more than if
they had lent to the US government. This means that the speculators
lent to Ghana believing that there was a high chance they would not
be fully repaid.

However, for the moment those speculators are being paid, in part
because since April 2015 the IMF has been lending more money which
is being used to meet debt payments, effectively bailing out
previous lenders. In return, the Ghanaian government has to cut
government spending and increase taxes, a process which is expected
to intensify further after the December 2016 elections. Under
current plans, government spending per person (adjusted to account
for inflation) will fall by 20% between 2012 and 2017.

The IMF estimates the Ghanaian government’s external debt payments
in 2016 will be 29% of revenue, well above the 18-22% it normally
regards as the upper limit of sustainability. Payments are expected
to stay well above 20% of revenue until at least 2035. This is only
considered possible due to a combination of very optimistic
expectations and requirements for large spending cuts and tax
increases, the very things the IMF has been criticising the
European Union for in the case of Greece.

The IMF predicts:

* Dollar GDP growth averaging 8.2% a year from now until 2035. Yet,
from 2008 to 2015 Ghana’s economy grew at less than half this rate
despite the discovery of oil. * Growth in government revenue in
line with GDP, collecting 19-21% a year. Yet, Ghana has only once
collected 19% of GDP in government revenue in a year (in 2011)
since IMF records began in 1980. …

* A fall in the average interest rate paid on external debt from
5.1% to 4.1%. Yet, interest rates on external private and
multilateral debt have been increasing, and dollar interest rates
are expected to increase as and when the US Federal Reserve
continues to raise rates. * A large primary budget surplus by 2017,
and continuing surpluses from then on. Yet, this will mean
continuing government spending cuts and tax increases, and will
take demand out of the economy, thereby reducing growth and risking
a classic debt trap where austerity leads to less growth, which in
turn increases the relative size of the debt, which leads to more
austerity and less growth, and so on.

Escapes from the trap

Debt is already placing a significant burden on Ghana’s economy and
society, and the country is at risk of falling back into an
extended debt trap, with an economic stagnation and possible
increases in poverty rates and failure to implement the Sustainable
Development Goals. Today’s crisis has resulted from a multitude of
factors: failure to diversify away from commodities, the government
and lenders failing to ensure loans were used productively enough,
falling global commodity prices, particularly gold and oil, and the
opportunism of speculators lending at high interest rates seeking
large profits.

The people of Ghana should not have to bear all the suffering of a
crisis caused by government policy, irresponsible lenders, and
global economic shocks, especially when speculators continue to
extract large profits from the country.

…

Additional excerpts from full report

Slowing progress in reducing poverty and increased inequality

During the ‘boom’ up until 2013, progress in reducing poverty slowed
down, and inequality increased.

The most recent data on poverty and inequality in Ghana comes from
the Ghana Living Standards Survey in 2013. This shows that the
number of people living in poverty fell from 7 million in 2006 to
6.3 million in 2013. The proportion of people living in poverty
fell from 31.9% to 24.2%. Poverty is defined as not having enough
income to meet all basic food and non-food needs, and was set at
1,314 cedi per adult per year for 2013 ($1,460 a year in Purchasing
Power Parity terms, 32 or $4 a day). According to a report for
Unicef, this means the average annual rate of poverty reduction
slowed to 1.1 percentage points a year from 2006 to 2013, down from
1.8 percentage points in the 1990s.

In total, the number of people living in poverty fell by 10% between
2006 and 2013. In contrast, over the same time period GDP per
person grew by 44%. In the previous seven-year period from 1999 to
2006, the number of people living in poverty fell by 14% whilst the
economy only grew by 18%. There has been an increasing divergence
between the pace of economic growth and the pace of poverty
reduction.

This divergence is because more of the financial benefits of growth
have been going to richer people. Average adult consumption for
Ghana’s richest 10% increased by 1,246 cedi between 2006 and 2013,
almost ten times more than the increase of 135 cedi for the poorest
10%. The ‘richest’ 10% is still a relative term however – the
average income of the richest 10% in 2013 of 5,789 cedi a year was
equivalent to $6,500 in Purchasing Power Parity terms. Within the
richest 10% there are still huge disparities in income and wealth.
Overall, inequality has been increasing on almost all measures (see
Table 1 below).

…

The New Debt Trap

Ghana is now at risk of entering an extended debt trap in which
government spending continues to fall with negative impacts on
poverty, inequality and economic growth, while debt stays high.
Meanwhile, high interest rates on private loans mean speculators
continue to take large profits out of the country.

The fall in oil prices from the middle of 2014 led to significant
falls in expectations of government revenue collection in Ghana, on
the part of the government, foreign speculators and the IMF. This
in turn led to sharp falls in the value of the cedi against the
dollar, thus increasing the relative size of debt payments.

Meanwhile, external debt payments began to increase from 2012 as
interest payments needed to be made on the recently taken out
private external debt, whilst interest and principal payments on
the multilateral and bilateral loans increased because of the
increase in such debts, and because grace periods 80 on loans given
after HIPC and MDRI came to an end (see Graph 14 below).

Initially these increased debt payments were met by more borrowing
of both external and domestic debt. In addition, in April 2015, an
agreement was reached with the IMF for $930 million of loans from
2015 to 2018, all of which are effectively being used to help meet
debt  payments, including the interest to private speculators.
These have been added to by other similar loans from the World Bank
and African Development Bank.

…

Projections beyond 2017.

The IMF is only able to predict that Ghana will be able to keep
paying its debt by making very optimistic predictions about the
future.

The IMF and World Bank DSA projects that external debt service will
continue to stay high for many years, still being almost one-
quarter of government revenue in 2035. However, it also projects
that overall external debt and total public debt will gradually
fall as a percentage of GDP. This assumes that growth in GDP
measured in dollars is high, averaging over 8% in nominal terms. It
also assumes there is a primary surplus every year, from a height
of 2.3% of GDP in 2017 to 0.9% by 2025 and 0.1% in 2035.

However, the predictions for dollar-GDP growth in the DSA have
already proven over-optimistic compared to the more recent April
IMF World Economic Outlook for 2016 and 2017, which, as noted
above, indicates that external debt will continue to rise.

The only way the IMF can predict Ghana’s debt will keep being paid
is by assuming:

* high growth in dollar GDP, averaging 8.2% a year

* the government collecting around 19-21% of GDP in revenue every
year, ie, revenue growing in line with GDP

* a fall in the average interest rate paid on external debt from
5.1% to 4.1% over the medium term

* a large primary surplus by 2017 of 2.3%, and continual surpluses
after, albeit at a falling proportion of GDP

Any significant failure in these assumptions could cause debt to
increase further out of control, ultimately costing the people of
Ghana more if it continues to be paid. Yet all of these assumptions
are either optimistic or require significant sacrifices.

…

Escapes from the debt trap

Urgent action is needed to ensure Ghana does not fall into a debt
trap in which government spending continues to fall with negative
impacts for poverty, inequality and economic growth, while debt
stays high.

To avoid this trap debt payments need to be cut. At the moment, all
the costs from irresponsible lending and borrowing, and the decline
in oil and other commodity prices, are falling on the people of
Ghana, and none of them on the lenders. Below we make
recommendations on how the debt trap can be avoided through lenders
sharing in the burden of failed lending and the external economic
shock of falling commodity prices.

In addition, to prevent this trap being created again, there needs
to be greater transparency and accountability in relation to debt
on the part of the government of Ghana and lenders, tax justice to
ensure that more of the revenue generated in Ghana stays in the
country and is available for social spending and public investment,
and a reorientation of the Ghanaian economy away from reliance on
primary commodities.

Below are proposals which we believe the government, political
parties and lenders should discuss with civil society both before
and after the elections in December 2016.

Conduct a debt audit

In this report we have attempted to identify how much debt there is,
who the loans were given by, what they were for and on what terms.
However, the lack of transparency with many loans means this is
difficult to do and much information is not publicly available.
Both the government and all lenders should release details of how
much is owed, to whom, on what terms, and what the money was meant
to be used for (if specified). This could be done through
establishing an independent debt audit commission.

…

Make lending and borrowing more productive and accountable

Ghana’s debt has increased rapidly without it being clear what the
loans were for, and how projects they were funding were being
monitored and evaluated.

…

Make adjustment fair

Any reduction in debt payments from measures below will help prevent
Ghana getting further stuck in a debt trap. But government finances
will still need to be improved to ensure sustainable finances which
allow poverty and inequality to be reduced and the Sustainable
Development Goals to be met.

The Ghanaian government should:

* Protect all vital public spending, such as on healthcare and
education, social services and welfare protections, and key
economic infrastructure.

* Increase tax revenues from large companies and rich individuals,
including by ceasing to grant tax waivers, including for public-
private partnership projects, and increasing the capacity of tax
collection authorities to ensure existing laws relating to issues
such as transfer mispricing are implemented.

…

Hold a debt conference

The change in oil price means that Ghana cannot make debt payments
wthout significant cuts in vital government expenditure, high
economic growth and continued high borrowing. It is unfair for the
suffering caused by the change in global economic conditions to be
born entirely by the people of Ghana and none by the lenders.

The Ghanaian government could call a conference of all its creditors
to negotiate the debt down to a level consistent with meeting the
Sustainable Development Goals. A UN body such as UNCTAD could be
contracted to advise on what a sustainable level of debt would be.
Negotiations have been held between the government and local banks
and some power sector debts, 98 but a much more comprehensive
approach is now needed across external debt.

…

Default or threaten to default on some of the debt

The Ghanaian government could stop paying some or all of the debt.
For most if not all creditors, it is the threat (or reality) of not
paying which will incentivise them to renegotiate the terms of the
debt. For instance, if some lenders did not respond to requests for
a debt conference, threatening to default or defaulting could make
them more willing to do so. Defaults on different types of debt
come with different implications which we discuss below.

…

Cancel unjust debts

The details of many loans are unknown, so no assessment can yet be
made of how well the money was spent and how responsibly the
lenders acted to ensure it was invested well. However, this report
has uncovered that the World Bank broke its own rules by disbursing
93% of its money to Ghana as loans when it should have been giving
half grants and half loans. Furthermore, at least $540 million of
debt owed to the World Bank is for projects where the World Bank
itself has said its performance was less than satisfactory (25% of
debt where there is an assessment).

…

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 9 (acn) Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the US economic, financial and commercial blockade still persists, and caused Cuba damages for some 4.68 billion dollars last year alone.

At a press conference to present the report Cuba will take to the United Nations, Rodriguez stressed that the economic siege has lasted over half a century and it has a negative impact on the well-being of Cuban families and the socio-economic development of the country.

The Foreign Minister said the main losses for Cuba were in the export of services and goods, increased prices to products because the need to buy them in faraway markets, and the impossibility of using US dollars in its financial deals.

Cuba will introduce at the UN General Assembly next October 26 Resolution 70/5 under the name: Necessity to end the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States to Cuba.
Despite the improvement on the relations between Cuba and the US, the harm the blockade does to the Cuban people forces Cuba to present this resolution again, said the Minister

Denuncia Cuba persistencia del bloqueo de Estados Unidos

AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 6, 2016 (160706)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

As recognition grows that the legacy of slavery and the slave trade
is still embedded in the structural inequalities of today’s world,
scholars are finding new ways to make the lost connections visible.
One dramatic and inspiring illustration, featured in this issue of
AfricaFocus Bulletin, is the film “They Are We,” showing the
rediscovery and re-connection in person with their African relatives
of an Afro-Cuban community which still celebrates their heritage
with dances and songs in a language almost forgotten by current
generations even in its villages of origin in Sierra Leone. The
film, first released in Cuba in 2013, features the story of this
rediscovery, in the voices and faces of the communities who
collaborated in the making of the
film.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sltd1607.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sltd1607.php

The film originated in the research in Cuba and West Africa of the
Australian anthropologist Emma Christopher. But it turned into
dialogue and collaboration of both members of the communities and
filmmakers in Cuba and Sierra Leone.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains several short reviews, from New
York, Chicago, Havana, and from the website for the film, as well as
links to an educator’s guide for use of the film in classrooms. The
full video is available to rent for streaming on Amazon for $2.99
(go to http://tinyurl.com/zhvbqcw).

Thanks to AfricaFocus reader Daphne Muse for calling my attention to
this film through her Facebook post.

And, by coincidence, just as I was deciding to put this on
AfricaFocus, as a break from the normal focus on analysis of current
events and issues, I also was reminded of two related sets of
stories. I think AfricaFocus readers will agree that such glimpses
of the past are not just of academic interest, but also of relevance
in understanding how that past still molds today’s world, and how
remembering and reconnecting must be part of building new futures
that begin to repair the accumulated and continuing injustices.

First, the Washington Post published a feature article on Albert
Jose “Doc” Jones, who has long been a pioneer in maritime research
on the wrecks of slave ships, including the São José, a Portuguese
ship that went down near Cape Town after leaving Mozambique in 1794.
The Post article can be found at http://tinyurl.com/zefpceh. The
artifacts from the 1794 wreck, in which over 200 of the 500 slaves
on board drowned, will be on display at the National Museum of
African American History and Culture, as part of a cooperative
project of the Smithsonian Institution, Iziko Museums of Cape Town,
and other partners in the U.S. and Africa (see the press release
from the Smithsonian Institution at http://tinyurl.com/q6jbgqp). And
a short video on the São José, from Iziko Museums, is available at

The same morning, Ezikiel Pajibo, another AfricaFocus reader (in
Liberia), posted a Facebook link to an article from South Africa
History Online (http://www.sahistory.org.za) about Liberia’s
“Kroomen” sailors who worked along the West African and Southern
Africa coasts as contract workers for the British Navy as the slave
trade was ending in the 19th century and into the 20th century(
http://tinyurl.com/hns8s65). These sailors were among the channels
for the contacts of the Garvey movement in the Americas with South
Africa and Namibia (as explored in publications by scholars such as
Gregory Pirio and Robert Vinson).

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

They Are We http://theyarewe.com/

For a teaser video see https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theyarewe

To rent ($2.99) or purchase the streaming video on Amazon, go to
http://tinyurl.com/zhvbqcw

An educators’ guide for the film, with background on the slave trade
to Latin America and class activities suggestions, is available at
http://icarusfilms.com/guide/taw.pdf. A DVD for classroom use can
also be ordered from http://icarusfilms.com/new2015/taw.html

**************************************************************

This Documentary Uncovers an Afro-Cuban Community Singing in an
Almost Extinct African Language

http://remezcla.com/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/zrlyhjc

Feb. 18, 2016

Manuel Betancourt

They Are We tells a story that, were it not told by a University
professor in the middle of a documentary, you’d swear couldn’t
possibly be true. Emma Christopher, who’s written extensively on the
Atlantic slave trade and teaches at the University of Sydney, found
herself connecting a remote chiefdom in Sierra Leone with a small
Afro-Cuban community in Perico whose traditional song and dances
suggest a direct lineage to that Western African group. The film’s
title is a direct quote from a Sierra Leonean upon watching videos
of the Cuban dancers: “They are we!” he exclaimed, seeing something
in the annual San Lazaro ceremony that looked all too familiar.

That’s right, a lively celebration by the proud members of the
Gangá-Longobá in central Cuba eventually led Christopher to find the
African village from whence the songs came from generations ago.
Moreover, she arranged for these Afro-Cuban people to fly to the
place where their ancestor was torn from her family, sold to
slavery, and taken to the Caribbean island all those years ago.

As Christopher told an audience here in New York, “It’s completely
incredible that they’ve kept these songs and dances alive for all
these centuries!” The songs were being sung in a very particular
kind of language–the Banta tongue–which is nearing extinction in
Western Africa. Armed with this amazing story, Christopher moved to
Cuba for two years and ended up getting a Fellowship from the
Australian Research Council that helped her fund the finished film.
In it, we see four Cubans from Perico make the journey to Sierra
Leone where they are met with open arms by a community that was all
too happy to get to know these long-lost family members. They Are We
is a moving story that celebrates this colorful and vibrant slice of
Afro-Cuban culture, and which shows the resilience of tradition even
in the face of historical violence.

Christopher was on hand after the film’s screening at the Film
Society of Lincoln Center’s Dance on Camera series for a Q&A where
she talked about the long-gestating project, and explained more
about the cultural similarities between these two geographically
distinct communities.

Find some highlights from the Q&A below.

On How They Are We Came Together

“The film’s title is a direct quote from a Sierra Leonean watching
videos of the Cuban dancers: “They are we!” he exclaimed, seeing
something in the annual San Lazaro ceremony that looked all too
familiar.”

It was really my incredible pleasure to be part of that. It was an
amazing privilege. I never planned to make this film. I was working
on a totally separate project. I originally filmed the Cubans out of
interest, them being the only group still in Cuba that celebrated
being Ganga which I know, as a historian, means they were from
Sierra Leone/Liberia. They did not know this at this point. I wanted
to show it to my students in Australia who don’t know much about
Afro-Cuban cultures. And then, as you saw in the film, when I was
working in Liberia on the original project, these people in a cafe
saw it, and they were like “You have to show it to the whole town.”
And what I initially thought I was doing, what I was originally
interested in, was studying people’s reactions to it. So I started
showing it across West Africa in order to get people’s reactions.
Because I was intrigued by the way they responded. Because even then
I had no idea that we’d eventually be quite certain that an answer
was possible.

On Choosing Who Got to Make the Trip to Africa

[Who you see in the film is] a small part of the group. In some way
I turned it over to them. It’s kind of interesting: this had always
been a women’s society, and it’s pretty clear that it also was in
Cuba until Florinda–Cuco’s grandmother–died. Florinda had three
daughters. It had always passed from mother to daughter up until
that points. But she had three daughters, two of whom predeceased
her, and one of whom had medical problems. She was not able to pass
it to her. But she passed it to her granddaughter, Piyuya who you
saw in the film. But what happened was, in Cuba, after Florinda
died, a Santero –and Santería is a much more male-dominated
religion–said, well it should stay in the family and it should be
passed to Cuco, Florinda’s grandson. So Cuco thinks of himself as
the leader and that’s fine. Except everyone else thinks of Piyuya as
the leader because she’s a woman and she inherited it from the
former leader. Piyuya was sadly, too old to come; she’s passed away
since then. She was 85 in the film. She was not strong enough for
the journey.

But Cuco really wanted to come and he wanted to bring his grandson.
And I very much wanted to bring Alfredo because he was someone who
had been carving African art. He was also known as really teaching
children about the pride in their African roots. And then I said
that they were not bringing four guys, because that’s a different
dynamic, and so, of course, it was Elvira who’s the successor. What
was interesting was that when we got to Africa was that the Africans
presumed that Elvira is the leader. And so Cuco would say that he’s
been waiting for his grandmother to appear to him in a dream for 30-
odd years to tell him the secrets, but in Africa, unfortunately, he
realized that this wasn’t going to happen. Because it’s a woman’s
secrets. And this was a bit of a surprise to him.

On the Surprising Cultural Resilience of Songs And Dances

The [Cubans] did not have that much of a sense of what it meant.
Certainly not in terms of the dances. The songs have slightly
different meanings to them but what was kind of intriguing is that
they more or less sing them in the same order as the Sierra
Leoneans. It’s not in the film, but there’s actually a recording by
Lydia Cabrera, the well-known Cuban-American anthropologist. She
recorded the Gangá-Longobá in the 1950s. But when Cabrera came to
the U.S. from Cuba after the revolution, she brought those
recordings with her and then kind of forgot that they existed. And
I’d taken those back to Cuba and Sierra Leone and they are very much
more identifiable to the Sierra Leoneans.

In fact, this one, which I found when I was editing this when I was
checking the subtitles for it, there’s a lot of evidence that up
until 1980 Florinda knew exactly what those songs meant. Because she
still says words in the Cabrera recordings that indicate that she
had much more clear meaning and what’s interesting and that up until
her death, she was known in the Perico region as a herbal healer. So
even though today they’d forgotten that some of the songs are herbal
remedies, there’s quite a lot of evidence that she knew. There are
clear differences in meaning, but underneath that, there’s more
commonality than I ever would have anticipated.

**************************************************************

‘They Are We’ review: Documentary unites Cubans, Africans

“They Are We” records the reunion of Afro-Cubans and Sierra Leone
villagers.

Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/guf8xlp

“They Are We” proves that you can go home again.

It takes a while to set up its centerpiece, a joyous
transcontinental reunion of Afro-Cubans and Sierra Leone villagers.
But the 77-minute running time of “They Are We,” making its U.S.
theatrical premiere this weekend at Facets with filmmaker Emma
Christopher in attendance, is nothing compared to the estimated 170
years that passed before the film’s far-flung subjects found each
other again.

Christopher’s story is an academic and musicological detective
story. Several years ago the University of Sydney professor traveled
to Perico, Cuba, where she filmed the Ganga-Longoba community. The
Ganga’s traditional chants, she discovered, originated in the
isolated Sierra Leone village of Mokpangumba, ravaged by civil war
in the 1990s. Christopher describes herself as a slave trade
historian; her research indicates the Mokpangumba people were sold
into slavery in the mid-1800s, to Cuban traders.

For a half-hour or so, “They Are We” shuttles back and forth from
Cuba to Sierra Leone as the two communities, who first come to know
of each other’s existence through viewing Christopher’s footage,
prepare for the Afro-Cubans’ life-altering trip across the ocean.
Christopher allows her camera subjects to reiterate their
anticipation once too often. (When one woman says, “I want the
moment we will meet to arrive,” you know what she means.) Then the
film grows into itself, and lovingly chronicles the celebratory
meeting of these very different but ancestrally connected groups.

The Ganga are given African names; woodcarver Alfredo Duquesne, for
example, becomes “Uncle Sinava.” In one scene he learns the art of
scaling a palm tree from his new brothers. The Mokpangumba boys in
turn learn baseball. “It’s been more than 20 years since we last saw
this man dancing,” one villager remarks, admiring an elder’s
response to the presence of his distant relatives, home at last.

Parts of “They Are We” feel like a first draft. But once the party
starts, all is well.

**************************************************************

“They Are We” Premieres in Cuba

Yusimi Rodriguez

Havana Times, December 13, 2013

“They Are We” Premieres in Cuba

On December 3, after months of waiting and intense anticipation, the
premiere of Emma Christopher’s documentary They Are We took place in
the Havana residence of the British Ambassador.

Havana Times readers have been able to follow the story narrated by
the documentary through previous articles on the work of Christopher
and photographer Sergio Leyva  and my interview with Alfredo
Duquesne and Elvira Fumero, the film’s Cuban protagonists.

More recently, they also read of Reunion, a photo exhibition with
pieces by Sergio Leyva and sculptures by Alfredo Duquesne held in
Havana’s Casa de Africa.

Seeing the film, I got a sense of the distance that separates a
story one hears or reads from a story one sees with one’s own eyes.
I could try to describe the way in which Elvira takes part in the
daily chores of the women in the African village, her humbleness and
sincere desire to learn from them, but my description would
invariably fall short of capturing the reality of it.  One has to
see her, hear the way in which she says she must return to the
village because she didn’t get to carry a pitcher on her head.

Seeing a story that is both familiar and new to one is a strange
feeling. I had heard Leyva’s description of how the people of
Mukpangumba, Sierre Leone had welcomed the Cubans from the town of
Perico, Matanzas when they arrived at the village. I had even seen
photos of the encounter. Nothing, however, compares to the emotions
I felt on seeing it unfold on the screen.

I hadn’t had a chance to meet Humberto Casanova, a direct descendant
of Florinda Diago, and her grandson Yandrys Izquierdo. They were
unable to attend the premiere because they were busy working in the
Ganga Longoba African folklore group.

I had seen their faces in Sergio Leyva’s photographs, but I had yet
to know of their experiences during the trip. This may explain why
one of the parts of the film I enjoyed the most was when Yandrys
taught village children to play baseball and the four Cubans staged
a traditional Ganga Longoba performance for the locals.

To our Western eyes, Mukpanguma may look like a precarious place. A
different filmmaker may perhaps have concentrated on the absence of
drinking water and electricity. Throughout my life, I have seen
Africa as a decimated and pillaged continent torn by civil wars.

Cubans’ relationship to Africa has been that of the do-gooders who
deploy international aid in the form of soldiers, doctors and
engineers to the continent. Africa is all that, true, but it is also
a land of rich and varied cultures, of people who have been able to
overcome all manner of tragedies. Sergio Leyva and Alfredo Duquesne
described the inhabitants of Mukangumba as super-people.

The thing I appreciate the most about Christopher’s work, evident to
me since our first conversation, is her intention of showing a face
of Africa different than the one divulged by the media, of telling a
hopeful and happy story. “Happy Africa,” were her words when she
spoke with our editor Circles Robinson and I following the film’s
premiere, “happy news Africa.”

The Are We will be screened at the San Diego Black Film Festival in
January and the Sierra Leone Film Festival. The director was unable
to submit it in time for screening at the 35th Havana Film Festival
– perhaps we will be treated to it at next year’s festival.

Beyond the recognition it may or may not achieve, the film has
staged beautiful moments (all of them captured by the camera), of
which I have only offered a foretaste.

During our conversation with Emma Christopher, we learned that, when
she traveled to the African village with her editor Joana Montero in
order to synchronize the subtitles, she sang a number of songs she
had learned by heart, having had to hear them repeatedly during
editing.

A villager travelling with them gave her a startled look, surprised
at seeing a young white woman singing local songs. In the end, as
they did with the Cubans from Perico, the people of Mukpangumba gave
her an African name – “Lumbeh”, meaning “she who stays with us.”

I would have paid to see the faces of villagers while watching the
documentary. Christopher tells us many had never seen a television
before, that they don’t even have mirrors in the village, and that
it was very strange for them to see themselves on a screen.

The film not only captures beautiful moments, it also prompts
questions, such as: when will the history of Africa begin to be
taught at Cuban schools, not from the perspective of Cuban
internationalism, but that of the diversity of cultures that exist
on this continent, the civilizations of those who were brought to
the Americas as slaves?

We could ask ourselves the same question about our own continent:
when will Cuban schools begin to teach the history of the Americas,
which as important as that of Greece, Rome and Egypt?

Though They Are We will not be shown at this year’s Havana Film
Festival, I don’t believe Cubans should wait a whole year to see it.
Its duration (an hour and ten minutes) makes it apt for a television
screening. There are more than enough channels and spaces on Cuban
television where it could be shown for audiences around the country.

**************************************************************

Director’s Note

From http://icarusfilms.com/guide/taw.pdf

Making They Are We was a rollercoaster of a journey. It is a film
that I never intended to make; did not even believe was possible.
When I was invited to film the annual ceremony of Cuba’s Gangá-
Longobá people, I did so simply from interest in their rituals.
Cultures meld and adapt to fit new realities, that is their nature,
and enslaved people and their descendants have had more reason than
most to use their cultures as means of not only survival and
endurance but also transformation and regeneration. They had to make
anew from the tiny fragments that had not been stolen. So I was
fascinated by a set of songs and dances specific to one Afro-Cuban
community, quite different to the more familiar and far larger
Santería and Palo societies.

Even when I began to screen the subsequent film footage of the
Gangá-Longobá across the Liberian and Sierra Leonean hinterland–the
part of Africa from which people termed Gangá originated–I had
little idea what would happen. What fascinated me initially were
West African people’s responses to the Cuban performance. Their
wonder, pride and joy were evident.

Yet screening the Cuban ceremonies in West Africa eventually led to
a village that ‘claimed’ the Gangá-Longobá in the most beautiful,
profound way. Its people simply and spontaneously joined in with the
Cuban songs, something nobody else had done. Fascinatingly, with
very little formal education, they also understood right away the
significance. They were watching, they told me, the descendants of
somebody stolen from their village. As one man said, ‘they are we’.
It was a day that will forever remain with me.

There were years more of work: tracing the details of this claimed
connection to the best of my ability, dealing with bureaucracy, and
agonizing over the danger of privileging this very rare link over
other (equally valid) kinds of African American-African connection.
But the agonizing was mine not theirs, not on either side of the
Atlantic.

They waited far more patiently than I. They were sure of what they
knew, that these were their long lost kin. And when word finally
arrived that the Gangá-Longobá would now be free to travel to Sierra
Leone, they danced in spontaneous celebration while I danced with
far less skill around the kitchen of my rented apartment in Havana.
The Cubans and Sierra Leoneans told me that obviously, after all
their dedications and quiet pleas, the ancestors had pulled the
right strings.

I became a filmmaker as well as a more traditional historian writing
books because I wanted people to be able to speak for themselves–
albeit through my lens–and for viewers to see their expressions and
sentiments, to glimpse the realities of their lives. It has been my
extraordinary privilege to work on this film, to call so many of the
people it revolves around my friends. I hope you and your students
enjoy meeting them through the screen.

Dr. Emma Christopher
Director, Producer and Researcher of They Are We
Anti-Slavery Australia, University of Technology Sydney.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org