Engineering News — December 08, 2017

AN ENGINEERING NEWS | December 8–14, 2017 39

S

outh Africa is one of the

continent’s powerhouses –

politically and economically –

with its gross domestic product (GDP)

being the largest, although it had to

contend with being second best to Nigeria

in the GDP stakes between 2014, when

the latter rebased its economy to include

previously uncounted industries, and

2016, when softening oil prices wrought

havoc with the West African nation’s

e conomy.

On the equally important governance

criterion, however, South Africa is not

the continent’s number one country –

that coveted status belongs to the island

nation of Mauritius, according to the

2017 Ibrahim Index of African

Governance (IIAG), released late last

month. Second is Seychelles, followed

by Botswana and Carbo Verde, with

Namibia rounding out the top five. South

Africa is ranked sixth.

Governance – defined as the provision

of the political, social and economic

goods and services that every citizen

has the right to expect from the State

and that the State has the responsibility

to deliver – is measured across four

components, namely safety and rule of

law, participation and human rights,

sustainable economic opportunity, and

human development.

While South Africa performed

commendably with respect to

participation and human rights, as

well as sustainable economic

opportunity, coming in at 4 out of

the 54 on both measures, its overall

ranking was dragged down by its

showing on the safety and rule of law

and human development measures,

where it was ranked seventh and eighth

r esp e ct ively.

What’s more, according to the

2017 IIAG, South Africa is among

the ten African countries whose

overall governance deteriorated the

most over the past decade, with its

peers in this group including the

likes of Libya, Madagascar, Mali and

the Central African Republic.

It is not all doom and gloom, though,

with the 2017 IIAG report noting that

there are signs of South Africa and

11 other countries bouncing back in

the overall governance stakes.

In fact, these countries registered a

positive trend in the past five years,

but this was not enough to change their

ten-year negative trajectory. And, along

with Mauritius, South Africa achieved the

highest score – 75 points – for protecting

minorities against discrimination.

The IIAG is an initiative of the Mo

Ibrahim Foundation, whose Sudanese-

born billionaire namesake founder – who

made his fortune in telecommunications

• has been on a crusade to encourage
  better governance in Africa for more than
  a decade.
  This has included the launch, in
  2007, of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for
  Achievement in African Leadership,
  which awards a $5-million initial
  payment and a $200 000 yearly
  payment for life to a retired African head
  of State who would have demonstrated
  exceptional leadership and changed his or
  her country for the better.
  Nelson Mandela was the inaugural
  honorary laureate in 2007, and other
  recipients have been Mozambique’s
  Joaquim Chissano (2007), Botswana’s
  Festus Mogae (2008), Carbo Verde’s
  Pedro Pires (2011) and Namibia’s
  Hifikepunye Pohamba (2014). No
  awards were made in 2009, 2010, 2012,
  2013, 2015 and 2016 for lack of a suitable
  candidate.
  It is unlikely that yet another laureate
  will emerge from our Southern African
  neck of the woods any time soon, if
  the records of the two Presidents from
  the region who left office this year are
  anything to go by.
  One of the duo, Angola’s Eduardo dos
  Santo, handed over the baton in August,

after having

been at the helm

for 38 years.

Incidentally,

Angola is Africa’s

third-largest

economy – after

South Africa and

Nigeria – but

its citizens have

nothing to show

for it.

During his

nigh-four-decade-long reign, Dos

Santos not only amassed an impressive

amount of political power in his hands

but also ensured that members of his

close family accumulated fabulous

personal wealth.

The most prominent is his eldest

daughter, Isabel, said to be the richest

woman in Africa. She headed the

country’s oil parastatal, Sonangol, but

has since been dismissed from this

sinecure by Dos Santos’ successor,

former Defence Minister Joao Lourenco.

Her private interests are in sectors

including telecommunications, banking

and cement making in both Angola and

its former colonial master, Portugal.

Isabel’s half-siblings are also filthy rich

courtesy of their father.

Then there is Robert Mugabe,

the child prodigy who would earn a

primary schoolteacher’s diploma while

he was still teenager before obtaining

seven university degrees and leading

his country’s struggle for independence

from Britain.

He had been Zimbabwe’s leader for

37 years when his rule came to a rude

end last month. What the world will

remember him for is his presiding over

a regime that butchered about 20 000 of

its own citizens just to maintain political

dominance and running the country’s

once-thriving economy into the ground.

He is also notorious for trampling on

property rights by grabbing farmland

from nonindigenous Zimbabweans.

All the good he did – ensuring that

even the poorest of the poor in his young

nation had access to a decent education

and healthcare, for example – will be

forgotten. It’s as if he was not listening

when Julius Nyerere, the late founding

President of Tanzania, told him in

April 1980, on the eve of Zimbabwe’s

independence, that he was about to

inherit Africa’s Jewel, exhorting him to

keep it that way.

AFRICA BE AT

SA’s not-so-impressive

showing in the

governance stakes

OPINION&ANALYSIS

Martin Zhuwakinyu

Zhuwakinyu is Creamer Media senior deputy editor –

[email protected]