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Showcasing the best of Africa

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ISSUE 15

AFRICA’S FINEST

PRESIDENT

GONE But Not

FORGOTTEN

Interview With

GRAYEMPIRE34 bankole.jone.1 www.calabashbusinesscorporation.com

Bishop

CUMMINGS

SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

Bankole Jones Editor in Chief and CEO 07939963139

Raymond Akabi-Davis Editor

Mike Butscher Associate Editor

Daniel Moore

Regional Marketing Manager

George Kabia

Business Director Sierra Leone

David Dravie John

UK Publication Relation Officer

Hannah Fullah

International Correspondent Sierra Leone

Edmond Clifford Jones Operation Manager Sierra Leone

Egerton Tamba Kamara Publicity Officer Sierra Leone

Calabash Magazine is published by

Calabash Business Corporation Ltd www.calabashbusinesscorporation.com africancalabash CalabashMagazine.

100

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SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

Inside.......

104

114

Welcome

From the Editor’s Desk

Development

Arts and Culture

Health

Champions – Success Stories

100 Lifestyle 104 Tribute

114 Interview 120 Relationship 124 International

SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

Bankole Jones

SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

Come Organisations that digitalised their information systems were able to switch to home and hybrid working environments easily.

he world has been battling to combat a pandemic which snuffed out the lives of some of our friends and colleagues and keeps destroying once strong and thriving

businesses and economies of the world. In Calabash 14, I wrote about digitalisation and information age; we saw the power of digitalisation in the fight against COVID 19.

Notwithstanding all the negative effects caused by Covid 19, it changed our working patterns. Digital space replaced once fanciful offices in buoyant cities like London, New York, Paris, Moscow, Nairobi and Johannesburg etc. Zoom meetings became the order of the day replacing face to face interactions. In this issue we

W e l c o m e

Wel

SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

DEVELOPMENT CORNER

ARE AFRICAN COUNTRIES GETTING THE WHOLE SHARE OF THEIR

RAW MATERIALS?

Introduction In 2018, Africa established a significant historical landmark where 44 member nations of the African Union passed an Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area in Kigali (Ndonga et al. 2020). Creating a single market for African goods and services could boost the continent’s economy. Approximately 1.5 billion African citizens can benefit from the milestone. Africa is richly endowed with minerals such as oil and gold, agricultural products such as tea, cocoa, and cotton, unexploited natural and human resources, and the initiatives can be a game-changer for the States. Additionally, the continent’s trades to the rest of the world ranges are approximately $800 billion between 2015-2017, with 80 to 90 per cent accounting for exports. It is a fantastic deal for Africans, especially the shareholders and the trade participants, but do they get their full share of the raw materials? The purpose of this article is to answer the question of whether African countries are getting their whole share of their raw materials. SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

By Bankole Jones

frican countries are not getting their deserved share of raw materials revenues. Below is a discussion of why they do not get it in full.

Taken over by foreign-owned companies In the early 2000s, the prices of raw materials had sharply increased before experiencing its first scourging decrease in the financial crisis in 2008 (Mancini et al., 2013). In 2015, the fall in price deteriorated, where ore fell by 65 per cent monthly, copper by 25 per cent that year. Moreover, as economic and political instabilities continue, price instabilities persist, which heavily affects producer nations. Research shows that economic inequalities in Africa’s resource-rich nation continue to grow compared to other countries. The miners have surfaced it strikes in South Africa, one of the most natural resources States in Africa. Guinea has been finding ways to tax foreign companies to get her fair share from bauxite mining. Due to the lack of bauxite processing industries in the countries, aluminium mining is solely in foreigners’’ operations. The country’s Constitution, 30 per cent of the total mining revenue should be collected and disbursed to the region’s citizens. How can this be effective with these companies controlling mining? Consequently, Guinea’s government is seeking counsel with the IMF and World Bank on taxing these companies efficiently. Lack of production skills and competence. Since 1960, Nigeria, a successful oil producer globally, nearly $400 billion of the oil income has been stolen. The amount

DEVELOPMENT CORNER was twelve times the country’s 2011 national budget. Consequently, raw material such as oil has resulted to unresolved disputes and even violence in some countries such Tanzania, Malawi and South Sudan. This comes as a result of unfair shares of the raw material revenue. However, very few African nations can process their raw products, leaving the work to foreigners. The highest percentage of the earner profit from the extraction of these products goes to foreigners’ companies w h o pay low rates tax. Additionally, none of the diamond mining countries in Africa controls their mines solely. The mines ownership is either a partnership with foreign-owned companies or wholly owned by foreigners. Botswana, a leading diamond miner in Africa, houses seven mines; the largest is Jwaneng, owned by Debswana diamond mining company in partnership with De Beer. De Beer is said to control all the sales of the raw material. Catoca mine in Angola is owned by an Angola company in partnership with Russian and Chinese companies. De Beer has the most considerable control of diamond mining in Africa with full ownership of the South African mines and partial partnership with the Namibia government on those in Namibia. Nevertheless, the same case applies to gold and oil mines. Foreign-owned companies have predominated Africa for these raw materials. However, Africa’s incapability and incompetence in mining sectors have resulted in offshore companies coming to their aid. In 2017, the Ethiopian government invited international mining partnerships by providing incentives such as

low corporate tax, protection procedures, and dutyfree import of mining equipment.

Auction prices

and high cost of production

In 2017, Africa accounted for about 20 % of global tea exports, with Kenya being the leading Africa country and third-largest tea exporter globally. Kenya SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

ARTS AND CULTURE

SCARS OF

SLAVERY By Bankole Jones

lavery is not a new topic to most of the Africans and Jamaicans. The 16th to 19th centuries had a surge in cases of slavery across the continents. Sir John Hawkins and others pioneered slave trade, focusing on using labour plantations to make profits through the sale of people. The process of selling the slaves involved the use of auctions or scrambles, all of which downgraded the value of human rights. The source of the slaves was the vulnerable, mostly the indigenous communities. Slave owners used inhumane ways to stop the escape of the slaves, which included using branding to mark recaptured slaves. From the consideration of all the procedures that slaves underwent, it is evident that the slaves were exposed to infringement of human rights. Slave trade has been linked to charges and banks, which are social institutions. It is important to establish if the affected parties would actually require to be compensated, specifically the most affected communities in Africa and Jamaica.

Photo Credit: Google Image

HISTORY OF SLAVERY AND LINK OF THE CHURCHES AND WESTERN BANKS TO THE TRADE

Slavery is an old trade that involved the purchase of people to work in different contexts and farms. The trade dates back as old as the 13th century, although the trade was available even before the recorded time. The trading opportunity came from the presence of economic surpluses in one region and a high population SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA

density in another. Ancient slavery did not consider the monetary value of the sale of people to offer free working services. Other contexts focused on using the slave trade to cover national and regional debts. In all these trades, the Western countries took the upper hand in fostering slave trade. The mass transfer of slaves from the African continent was influential in the introduction of particular communities in these countries. However, religion and specifically the churches had a significant contribution towards the

ARTS AND CULTURE Photo Credit: Google Image

fostering of the trade and its elimination. The timelines between fostering and advocating for its elimination had some implications on the role of churches in slave trade.

slave trade was part of the old trades in the Bible. The targets were Africans and Indians, probably due to their lack of belief in the divine God. Such factors led to the inhumane treatment of locals, with the churches focusing on capitalizing on Christianity to foster local ROLE OF CHURCHES IN SLAVERY trade. Although the church focused on promoting human rights, the activities they undertook did not The church was part of the slave trade in Africa. The meet the requirements for observing these rights. missionaries that came to Africa focused on influencing the locals to adapt to religion. The religion came with The introduction of Christianity came with the a divine God. The whites proclaimed that people who development of mainstream churches, such as did not believe in the divine God were not worthy Catholics and the Anglican churches. Surprisingly, in this life. The Bible was used to justify the deeds the Catholic Church was part of the transatlantic slave of the whites against the Africans. Specifically, in trade. The slave trade had the Bible at the core of South Africa, the missionaries invested in oppression justifying the activities that the people were engaging and slave trade to convince the locals to adapt to in. The father of slave trade, Sir John Hawkins, was Christianity. Notably, the Bible has records on how a religious man and pledged to serve God. From the

SHOWCASING THE BEST OF AFRICA