Beware of investors “milking Africa’s resources”. This was the message from organisation development specialist, Dr Mongezi Makhalima who told FTW recently that southern African countries should ensure that bilateral deals made in return for investment should provide equal benefit to both sides. “While there is a “pool of global savings” available to southern African countries for logistics infrastructure, governments and the private sector should ensure that these deals incorporate skills transfer and balanced trade agreements.” He pointed to China as a key example of skewed benefits. “It’s due to the kind of deals governments make which are often focused on short-term goals,” he said. As happened in Zimbabwe recently, business should start revolting and demanding leaders that were not focused on the next elections, but on the next generation, he added. Phumelelo Mbiya, head of Africa Research at Standard Bank, agreed that South Africa, along with a number of other southern African countries, was not spending enough on infrastructure investment, including on logistics and freight infrastructure, which was vital to ensure growth. On the flip side, Mbiya added that despite how other countries viewed China, they could all learn from the way it had engineered its own growth path. “The difference is, they think 200 years in advance and strategise around that.” Furthermore, China had made a concerted effort to fully understand the markets it traded with and invested in, he added. “China truly understands Africa and is therefore able to exploit it for its own growth. China has also always funded its own infrastructure developments, knowing that it needs to limit outside influence.”
