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Manuel: Nepad faces problems
06/06/2002 20:47 - (SA)
Durban - Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Thursday told delegates at the Africa Economic Summit in Durban that a key issue for Nepad was how to persuade Africans to invest money in their own countries.
"We are starting with a huge deficit in respect of African savings - this triggers issues of confidence which interfere with our ability to attract capital," he said.
In 1990, Africans held an estimated US$360 billion or 40% of their savings abroad - a ratio which was unlikely to have improved in the past decade, Manuel said.
Manuel also acknowledged that it would be tough to persuade every African country to submit to a process of "peer review" on sound political governance - keeping their side of the bargain to boost investment flows.
"It is the hardest issue - there isn't anywhere in the world where governments have a norm that they criticise each other. But I don't know of any country that has ... baulked at the idea," he said.
African leaders, under Nepad, have pledged to fix regional conflicts, promote good governance and fight epidemics they say could scuttle their plan to help Africa stand on its own feet.
They have pledged to find a solution to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and work to return security to Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and Somalia - which has had no formal government for more than a decade.
Manuel said that details of peer pressure would be discussed at an annual summit of African leaders in July, and he expected "unequal enthusiasm" for the plan. Other officials say it will be put into action within a year's time.
Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa said Africans were tired of rhetoric from their leaders and wanted Nepad to be transformed into real implementable projects that ordinary people could identify with.
"The complaints (by business) are that roads, railways, telecommunications, ports don't work and so it's not easy to do or improve business. These are areas that require the right aggressive policies. We must invest in efficiency," he said.
- Reuters
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