An international development and financial practitioner wants Africa to adopt the Chinese’s fast approach to doing things for the continent to rise to its greatest potential.
According to Dr. Frannie Leautier, Chief Operating Officer of the Trade Development Bank, Africa is completely lagging behind to make it to the top due to its inability to pursue projects with the zeal they deserve.
Speaking on the Point of View on Monday, she said it was long overdue for African leaders to learn from China’s best practices to develop the continent.
“We need to decide which of the infrastructure we need quickly and which one we need to learn from and maintain in the long run or how we get the two balance right. One advantage that the chinese brings is that, they are very fast. They can construct overnight, something that will take us months and years if we use our traditional systems of labour and technology. So I think that is one area that we can really learn from the Chinese, on how to do scales quickly. I think probably, they are the best in the world.”
“Support through learning from the Chinese and other investors as well must come in. They paired up every mission that was coming into the country with the local person who learn from that mission. So how we are able to quickly adapt, learn and use those skills. China didn’t become great overnight. They scouted the world, they still scout the world today for ideas and talents and bring those ideas back home and I think we can do the same thing and imitate that aspect which has worked very well for China.”
Africa will develop if it re-strategizes negotiation of its natural resources deals – Frannie Leautier
Dr. Frannie Leautier also stated that, a better negotiation of Africa’s natural resources deal coupled with a wide tax net is the panacea to the continent’s development.
She says it’s about time governments of the various African countries adopt measures to enable them compete with the other developed countries.
When host of the Point of View, Bernard Avle asked Dr. Lautier how Africa will be able to raise enough money to embark on its developmental agenda despite the financial distress to better the lives of the people, she said:
“First is widening the tax base. Africa economies are almost exclusively dependent on small and medium enterprises which are about 70 percent of all jobs and are responsible for about 80 percent of GDP and extractive resources. So those are the two main sources of revenue for governments. So there is the need to adopt a strategy for that tax base to be widened. We need to rethink the ways of negotiating deals on natural resources extraction and the appropriate tax revenue from that. Because 50 million dollars is lost a year in Africa through tax havens where companies declare their taxes outside from where they are producing and therefore the country do not benefit from that.”
