by LUKE ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – ECONOMISTS are keeping billions of you poor, because they are missing both the issues and solutions summarized in Chapters 23 and 24.
There is no institution which provides seed funding to start a factory or any formal business. In Africa, economists insist that one must start business operations from their own capital and that governments cannot advance capital to black people to start factories. Instead, countries must attract foreign investors.
Economists miss the crucial starting point, that the number of formal businesses should be about 5% of the population or equivalent, for adequate growth, full employment and leaving a margin for scarcity. As explained in Chapter 4, South Africa had 1.3% in 2018, far too low. Below 5% level the economy is not fully engaged.
Employers are a commodity of supply and demand just as hospital beds, classrooms, food etc. There are no jobs because there are not enough employers or businesses.
By refusing to capitalize poor populations, formal business germination remained subdued as the poor cannot enter the formal economy, resulting in low growth and unemployment. Foreign investors are also not many enough to fill that gap.
The correct approach is that governments must seed and facilitate germination of new factories. Government must attend where markets do not. But not just handing out money. It must be through well designed industrial, mining and agricultural programs.
China did it. That is the road to growth, opportunities, the fruits of freedom and future inhouse investments. Researchers put black people through a 2-day Mnotho pilot training on how to identify viable product ideas.
Black people came up with brilliant product ideas. Despite the business plans, the Department of Trade Industry & Competition (DTIC) Chief Economist and Director General wrote that section 195(1)(b) of the Constitution of the Republic did not permit funding to start the factories. The Constitution many citizens died for was now thrown into their face.
Politicians are blamed for poor African economies and the suffering of black people. But neigh, blame must be on the economists, accountants, engineers, lawyers, all those technocrats trained under the Charters of the British and Ivy League institutions, who sit in the forefront of every government business, at every economic roundtable.
They advise governments not to capitalize the African masses into factories. As a result, the number of formal businesses made no progress towards reaching 5% of the population.
Politicians, however, are also too naïve. After taking power, they recede to the backstage, and then protect the politics, security and public relations, leaving economic decisions to the technocrats.
Technocrats are trained to manage or administer what is there, not to create new economies. The Presidents must ask the economists why Africa must wait for foreign investors. Freedom was fought by black Africans.
They did not import fighters.
At a press encounter in Nigeria on 4 May 2022 the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in opening his Africa tour, said; “I have said several times that we need to reform the global financial system.
It was designed by the rich, for the rich. But as we face a situation that requires urgent action, we must make greater use of all available mechanisms for the benefit of developing countries, including middle-income countries, especially in Africa.”
Mnotho Team: E Mahlaela, LD Zunga, T Maile (As in above order)
– CAJ News