A few years ago, African member states adopted the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a framework to allow deregulated economic and skills flows across the borders to allow for regional co-operation, inclusive growth, sustainable development and sovereignty for the continent to finally self-determine its own pan-African economic path.
This came after decades of observations about the disconnected nature and design of Africa, which makes it impossible for it to trade with itself. Many research publications have emphasised that African countries trade more with their European counterparts than they do among themselves.
In fact, last year these statistics changed as China has now become the biggest trade partner of Africa. These trade imbalances were attributed to the legacy of colonialism that created wall-to-wall borders with underdeveloped infrastructure that disabled the integration of the various regions of the continent.
We see this issue even in simple case studies such as the manner in which African national football teams struggle to travel across the continent to play against each other in Fifa tournaments.
When SA had to play against Sierra Leone and Senegal a few years ago, they first had to fly from Johannesburg to Paris and days later connect to Dakar and Freetown.
A trip that could have taken just six hours had there been a speed train between Freetown and Johannesburg ends up taking more than three days with unnecessary wastage of resources.
This infrastructural disconnect is different from the European experience.
The EU has created cutting-edge policies and connections to allow the free movement of goods and people for leisure and business at the most efficient rate possible – to the extent that the entire continent shares a currency.
In Europe, the Eurail system allows people to move between 33 countries and more than 40,000 destinations on a single ticket accessed through their smartphone. In Africa, this is impossible even in advanced cities such as Cape Town and Cairo.
The best commuting service in these African cities is Uber which is expensive, unsafe, privately owned and doesn’t allow flexibility of movement across the city at the rate a consumer would prefer.
And so the AfCFTA came into being as the latest attempt for Africa to transform and integrate.
This framework will only be implemented successfully when Africa begins to develop nation states that are powerful, with the right skills to regulate and drive development according to the specific needs and transformation targets of the continent.
To build the specific infrastructure we need to integrate all African economies and its people, we need such a programme to be funded and led by African states acting together.
Roads, ports, airports, train stations, trade policies, courier services, logistics networks, diplomatic services and the hospitality industry all require an African nation state to create and maintain them so that they can be designed, costed, and driven to serve the developmental agenda of the continent.
These services must be developed to serve the public good and improve standards of living, especially of the working poor, the women street vendors and the poorest countries of the continent.
But this is currently not the case. African states are weak, vulnerable, fragile, corrupt and confused policy priorities. The promising African states such as Botswana, Namibia, Nigeria and SA are all sinking in the neo-liberal policy environment that serves the interests of the Western markets and the World Bank.
They embrace privatisation, labour exploitation and reduced government spending on key infrastructure and social services – and they are unable to provide security to their citizens from crime, terrorism, and illicit international syndicates that specialise in financial crimes and human trafficking.
SA’s key state institutions that used to provide economic development for the continent – such as Transnet, Eskom, Denel, and the Post Office – are all unstable and they are being allowed to collapse by the current government.
These institutions provided the continent with reliable energy supply (Eskom), safety and security services for peace (Denel), port logistics and trade support (Transnet) and efficient courier services and cheap movement of cash and goods to poor households and villages (Post Office).
These risks make the AfCFTA vulnerable to China and Europe because they know that African states are weak and will not manage the demands of the framework. As a result, they are able to come and exploit this framework for their own ends.
China is planning to build all our infrastructural needs itself and Europe is ready to continue planting its industries and technologies on our shores to monopolise the market space, replace the collapsed state entities with its own private sector, and drive the labour exploitation process and the inequalities that emerge – such as the migration crisis and crime.
In essence, the weaknesses of African states and the poor leadership behind them have now created a free movement for neo-colonisers to feast on the wealth and lands of our ancestors once again. We are on our own.
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