The citizens of the Southern African region are at last beginning to stand up for themselves. Three decades of bullying is abating in Zimbabwe, resistance is building up against the pathetic performance of the government of South Africa and forces are at work to bring an errant government into line in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Going forward, the people of Zimbabwe, South Africa, the DRC and others in this region must not allow their governments to perform poorly and must not allow their hard-earned taxes to be wasted.
The region’s countries have considerable potential to generate more wealth and more jobs from their mineral resources, but they are being prevented from doing so through the poor performance of the politicians and officials who consume their taxes, and even demand more when economies are in decline.
Zimbabweans have proved diligent miners, the South African economy can be rebuilt on mining and the DRC has huge potential to generate wealth to provide for world-class education and vigorous economic stimulation.
Yet, the region’s political leaders are being allowed to squander opportunities and engage in destructive corruption.
To counter corruption, the days of the region’s departments of mineral resources operating in secret must end.
How dare these departments refuse to divulge the identities of mineral rights applicants and recipients, as if the region’s mineral resources were their personal preserve!
The disappearance of mining money in the DRC, laudably exposed by the Carter Centre, emphasises the need for the citizens of this region to force their governments to become signatories to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
South African politicians, who should know better, were too snobbish to join this transparency initiative in the past. But this snobbishness has been at South Africa’s peril.
South Africa’s current Mineral Resources Ministry and its Department of Mineral Resources must be forced to submit to the oversight of this transparency initiative.
They must also be made to publish quarterly lists of mineral rights applications and mineral rights approvals.
This region’s government officials are proving useless managers of the world’s richest mineral endowment and will result in this region missing out on the next minerals boom if they are not forced into line speedily.
Under President Donald Trump, the US last week took the foolhardy step of pulling the country out of the EITI because they do not want to account for revenues from their extractive mining and oil industries.
Clearly, even the governments of developed countries cannot stand it when the light of transparency is shone down on them. They want control for everyone else and freedom for themselves, which often includes freedom to be corrupt.