WILL AFCFTA WORK?

WHILE the Kingdom of Eswatini awaits the outcome of the seven-horse race to play host to what is probably the African Union’s (AU) most ambitious new-born project, the agreement that creates the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) officially came into force last Thursday.

 What this effectively means is that AfCFTA, which is said heralds the birth of the world’s largest trading market of 1.2 billion people, is now in operation, meaning that the intra-African trade that has been lip-service in post-colonial Africa since the days of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to the current AU, has taken effect. The birth of this new-kid-on-the-block, is the reason African leaders, will reduce too much reliance on the volatility of commodity prices that impact on raw materials that make the bulk of the continent’s exports.

 With the coming into effect of the agreement creating AfCFTA, signatory member countries are expected and required to remove tariffs on 90 per cent of goods earmarked for exports. However, this is not expected to happen overnight and might take years to achieve, if this will be ever possible in a continent forever existing on potential that, decades after liberation from colonizers, it has not fully realized. The continental market, according to African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, has a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of US$2.5 trillion (approximately E37 trillion).

 Of the 55 member States of the AU, 52 have signed up to the agreement and Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country and boasting the largest economy, was preparing to put pen to paper.

The kingdom is competing with Egypt, Ghana, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Kenya and Senegal to host the AfCFTA Secretariat, which in other words is the headquarters of this organ of the AU. Except to hope that, from a patriotic viewpoint, Eswatini emerges victorious, I shall deliberately avoid delving into this contest for a number of reasons that I will also not share with readers of this column, given the absence of free speech within these shores.

 As I see it, the import of this newest organ of the AU, that ironically was birthed in an unlikely host country, Rwanda, is if eventually it will impact the poverty-stricken populations of this rich poor continent. Since the days of the Old Boys Club – that’s the name we christened it during my school days - which the OAU evolved to be instead of championing the causes of the masses of Africa, has largely been a failure, hence it is home to some of the poorest countries on earth with all their mineral wealth in tow.

The continent has not developed exponentially to the amount of natural resources that have been exploited since regaining liberation from colonial masters that have been catalytic in the development of other economies beyond Africa. In some instances, there has been retrogression in the quality of life of the people relative to the era under colonisation since the path to wealth in Africa is taking up a career in politics.

Yet, this continent is second to none in mineral wealth.
 As I see it, very few AU organs are functional because African leaders too often sign up to things that they are not really committed to. Take the Convention on Human and People’s Rights, for example, an organ to motor this was created and is hosted but The Gambia.

Yet Africa has the world’s worst record when it comes to respecting human rights. Has any leader ever raised their voice to question this, yet the relevant organ has to remain well resourced irrespective that it is not delivering anything on its mandate of inculcating a culture of human rights and policing violations. What happened to the single African passport also launched the same time as the AfCFTA agreement, or was it all hyperbole? Yes, African leadership’s fondness for playing to the gallery to impress their self-importance is legendary.

 Most often than not, the challenge is enforcing some of the ethos to which the AU member States have bound themselves. That countries sign up and proceed to ratify conventions is not binding them to respect and domesticate these into their respective domestic legal frameworks. This omission aside, most often African leaders have no respect for these self-same conventions and are not censored or sanctioned for this.

That is why sovereignty in Africa means an exclusive privilege available to dictators and despots, through which they nonchalantly annul God’s injunction that all men and women are born in His image and are equal, while arrogating to themselves and their group the right to think and speak for the people in perpetuity.  Poverty and disease that is second nature to Africa just did not happen. Often these are mastered by the very leaders who have the knack of elevating themselves above their nations.
These leaders no longer steal but believe they are entitled to ransack their treasuries and exploit their natural resources and economies exclusively for enriching themselves, their families and cronies. That has been the nature of post-colonial African politics.
Given where Africa is, in spite of all her riches in respect to mineral resources, an impoverished and d

seased continent, the question has to be posed why AfCFTA will turn out differently. For it is a fact that African leaders are well invested in their economies. And they use their political clout to benefit themselves and their families and blind loyalists. Yet, had they acted in the best interests of their people, by now pricing of commodities and minerals would be determined in Africa and not in Western capitals like oil-producing nations are regulating prices for crude oil. 
 

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