School Namibians in African political economy, says Mbeki

FORMER South African President Thabo Mbeki has called on the Namibia Business School (NBS) to empower its students as agents of change with knowledge of the African political economy.

Mbeki, who was the keynote speaker at the NBS’ annual founders and alumni dinner on Tuesday night, said Africa is defined by structural socio-economic parameters from which the continent must free itself or exploit to realise the objectives of the African Renaissance.He said although Africa has won political liberation, it still hasn’t acquired the means to ‘intervene in the global economy as more or less independent actors’. ‘In essence, our continent has maintained the old relations with the colonial world, and therefore the Western powers,’ Mbeki said.Mbeki said a study of the African political economy would show abuse of state institutions by parties in power to advance their interests, weakening of state institutions and a collapse of the notion and practice of the rule of law.Such a study would would tell an African story where the dominant and ruling faction creates a space to ‘abuse its privileged position as the head of the governance machinery’. By doing this, the faction enriches itself and abuses state power to ‘defeat and suppress its opponents and perpetuate its rule’, negating the democracy, Mbeki said.A study of the African political economy would further show the ‘nascent national bourgeoisie’ attaching themselves to ‘dominant foreign capital, among others, and in its interest, in the illegal and illicit export of capital’, Mbeki said. The study would also show ‘the emergence of so much uncertainty that it becomes impossible for most owners of capital, except the most predatory, to make long-term investments’, he said.Mbeki said ‘Africans need to build developmental states given the reality that sustained development in our countries requires the participation of the state and cannot just be left to the private sector’.Mbeki said ‘none of us can avoid the very hard reality that as Africans we share a common destiny – that we sink or swim together!’Africa has also seen many positive developments since the late 1990s and all indications are that the continent will ‘continue to make economic advances in the medium term’, he said. Africa’s main challenge is not the absence of correct and relevant policies and programmes, Mbeki said. ‘Our principal challenge is implementation.’’In most African countries/regions cooperation does not go far beyond signing treaties and protocols. And the objectives of the treaties are integrated at the wrong time and without the requisite commitment in national development plans or in the sectoral programmes of appropriate substantive ministries,’ Mbeki said.