Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Bawon Samedi]

Africa: Will Industrialised Nations Let Tanzania Industrialise?
A year after the 5th Phase Government of Tanzania President, Dr JohnPombe Magufuli, was sworn into the Highest Office in the Land on Nov. 5, 2015, the call for 'industrialisation' has become the rage of the day.

That's especially the case following the President's fervent, publicly-repeated desire to put Tanzania on the path to a semi-industrialised, middle-income country in the next decade as per the National Development Vision-2025.

In resonance with - and response to - the President's avowed commitment, top personages in his Administration and elsewhere have taken up the industrialisation exhortation as a matter of course.


For instance, the Permanent Secretary of the Industry, Trade &Investment Ministry, Dr. Adelhelm Meru, took the opportunity of an interview with a Dar-based news Agency, TanzaniaInvest, to explain the focus of the Magufuli Regime on industrialisation - including key industrial subsectors and the opportunities available to prospective investors.

Revealing that Tanzania's development is based on the vision 'Industrial Growth for Jobs Creation' - spelled out in the National Development Vision-2025; the current 5-Year Dev-Plan, and the FY-2016/17 Govt. Budget - Dr Meru explained why such inordinate emphasis is being put on industrialisation today.

Noting that countries which have developed strong economic bases did so through industrialisation, the Perm-Sec explained that industries create jobs, generate revenues, embrace new technologies and motivate trade in industrial products... [For details, see 'Dr Adelhelm Meru on Tanzanian industrialisation,' Business Times: Oct. 27, 2016].

A renown member of the mass media fraternity in Tanzania, Jamaal Mlewa, cited Industry, Trade & Investment Minister Charles Mwijage as saying 'the (Magufuli) Govt. is marketing eight areas to prospective private investors in its industrialisation efforts: Manufacturing, Infrastructure development, Agriculture, Mining, Tourism, Fisheries, Energy, and Information & Communications Technology (ICT)...


'We're looking to increasing investments in these areas,' the Minister told potential investors at a Deloitte Breakfast Meeting, revealing that 'Tanzania's 2nd 5-Year Development Plan (FYDP-II: FY-2016/17-2020/21) aims at boosting industrialisation, with total investment of Tsh107trn to be sourced from public and private sectors... ' [See 'Of industry-driven economies: the pros and cons in the Tanzanian case,' Business Times: Oct. 27, 2016].



However, Journo Mlewa notes, "stakeholders doubt the government's 'heart-and-soul' commitment to enable investors guide Tanzania towards the noble objective of attaining a semi-industrialised, middle-income economy in a decade hence!

"A Survey titled 'The Sixth Business Leaders Perception of the Investment Climate in Tanzania-2015' notes that corruption is still rampant. The July/August-2015 Survey proclaims that doing business in Tanzania is increasingly difficult... !"

Also - according to the Journalist - 'the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation identifies corruption, tax administration, level of taxes and access to finance as major disciplines that routinely keep prospective investors away!


The Foundation nonetheless acknowledges that "the new (President Magufuli) leadership has come out with a new approach that gives potential investors a modicum of confidence that something positive is happening; that discipline and professionalism are returning into public service," the TPSF Executive Director, Godfrey Simbeye, said in launching the Survey Report... '

Oh, I don't know... But, while industrialisation is a very good thing for an Economy, the odds against effective, meaningful and sustainable industrialisation in this day and age are daunting! That's especially so regarding Third World countries like Tanzania that're indecently dependent on so-called 'development partners' for budgetary and development expenditures!

As it happens, bilateral 'development partners' are themselves industrialised countries, while multilateral 'partners' - like the World Bank and the IMF - are heavily on the former's side every which way you look at it!

For centuries, the industrialized nations have routinely exploited non-industrialised countries for raw materials - and as ready markets for their industrial products and services.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201611110110.html

 

[Poitier]

West Africa Is Being Swallowed by the Sea
Encroaching waters off the coast of Togo, Ghana, Mauritania, and others are destroying homes, schools, fish, and a way of life.
BY MATTEO FAGOTTO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATILDE GATTONI


OCTOBER 21, 2016
FUVEMEH, Ghana — The tide is just starting to come in when David Buabasah begins nervously checking the waters creeping up the coastline toward his partially destroyed home.

As the high tide mounts the steep shore of this small Ghanaian fishing village perched on a shrinking peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Volta River estuary, he and other inhabitants prepare for the worst.

“When the big waves come, they can easily kill you. Last week, the ocean took away part of my house while my family was sleeping inside,” says the 32-year-old fisherman, gesturing toward a crumbling brick wall and a pair of door frames, the only remains of his family’s compound.

Growing stronger by the minute, the tide begins to push wave after wave into the village, pounding the dilapidated dwellings with unrepentant force. House walls collapse under the fury of the ocean, and huge pools of saltwater fill the center of town. Those whose houses are the closest to the shoreline can only watch as the waves carry away all of their belongings.

Twenty years ago, Fuvemeh was a thriving community of 2,500 people, supported by fishing and coconut plantations that are now completely underwater. But in the past two decades, climate change and industrial activity — such as sand mining and the construction of dams and deep-sea ports, which trap sediments and prevent them from reaching the coastline — have accelerated coastal erosion here. Gradually but inexorably, the ocean has swallowed up hundreds of feet of coastline, drowning the coconut plantations and eventually sweeping away houses.

For a time, villagers retreated, rebuilding destroyed houses farther away from the advancing shoreline. But eventually they ran out of land to fall back on: The narrow peninsula is now less than 1,000 feet across, and high tides routinely wash over the entire sandy expanse. The last trees have been uprooted by the waves and lie dead along the shore, a grim omen of what awaits fishermen like Buabasah, who have seen their livelihoods destroyed in the span of a single generation.


A young boy carries his two turkeys to save them from the flood caused by the rising sea level in Fuvemeh.

Fuvemeh is one of thousands of communities along the western coast of sub-Saharan Africa, stretching more than 4,000 miles from Mauritania to Cameroon, at risk of being washed away. Spurred by global warming, rising sea levels are causing massive erosion — in some places eating away more than 100 feet of land in a single year. Sea levels around the world are expected to rise by more than two-and-a-half feet by the end of the century, but they are expected to rise faster than the global average in West Africa, according to the West African Economic and Monetary Union. In a region where 31 percent of population lives along the coastline, generating 56 percent of total GDP, according to the World Bank, this is a potentially catastrophic problem.

“In West Africa, infrastructure and economic activities are centered along the coastal region, so as sea levels continue to rise, it threatens our very existence and source of income,” says Kwasi Appeaning Addo, a professor in the University of Ghana’s department of marine and fisheries sciences. “We are sitting on a time bomb.”

Togbe Agbavi Koffi, 60, is the chief of village of Agbavi in Togo. “The sea advances all year long,” he said. “It has devastated our villages and many of our people have already left.”

And it’s not just small fishing villages that are being threatened. Low-lying areas in Lagos, the Nigerian megalopolis that is the seventh-fastest growing city in the world, as well as in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, whose annual economic output is around $3 billion, are at risk of inundation. Already, both cities are grappling with more frequent — and severe — flooding than in the past. Low-lying areas of Accra now flood every year during the rainy season. Last year, at least 25 people died as a result.

The southern parts of Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, lose up to 80 feet of beach every year, and coastal erosion has already damaged several hotels in Gambia and Senegal, as well as vital water treatment facilities in Cotonou, Benin’s economic hub. The situation is the same in neighboring Togo, where last year the coast retreated 118 feet in some places, according to local authorities. On the outskirts of the capital, Lomé, rows of destroyed buildings line the beach in the town of Agbavi.

“My third house is about to crumble into the sea as well. I would like to cry, but a chief cannot cry.”Togbe Agbavi Koffi
“The national route used to pass there, just beside my first and second house,” says Togbe Agbavi Koffi, the town’s 60-year-old chief, pointing to the faint outline of a highway that is now submerged deep in the ocean. “My third house is about to crumble into the sea as well. I would like to cry, but a chief cannot cry.”


Local boys stand on the terrace of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Castle. Originally built in 1653, it was an important slave trading post along the West Africa coast; now it’s one of Ghana’s main attractions.

But it’s not just homes and businesses that are being swept away. Livelihoods, cultural heritage, and the social fabric of entire communities are disappearing as well. Rising temperatures have precipitated the migration of fish stocks while erosion and salinization have reduced arable land and contaminated freshwater reserves. Near Fuvemeh in Ghana, breeding grounds for sea turtles are disappearing, and the populations of dolphins, sharks, and whales are rapidly dwindling. At risk also are the UNESCO-protected colonial forts along the coasts of Ghana and Ivory Coast that served as conduits for the slave trade.

Stripped of their livelihoods and their heritage, coastal communities lose their most resourceful young people to migration while unemployment fuels drug and alcohol consumption at home. In Agbavi, the situation is so desperate that droves of young men have joined criminal syndicates involved in fuel smuggling and beach-sand mining, an illegal enterprise that worsens erosion.

“Some of our children go mining as soon as they come back from school, in order to gain some money,” Koffi says. “People are hungry, and small kids are forced to steal. We are suffering a lot.”

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People living in Fuvmeh walk across the village flooded by the rising sea level.

Instead of investing in ecologically sustainable techniques to manage rising sea levels, like developing aquatic farms or restoring mangrove shrubs, governments in West Africa have so far largely resorted to engineering less time-intensive defenses like sea walls and groins. When built properly and maintained well, groins — vertical structures erected perpendicular to the coastline that trap sediments and prevent them from moving along the coast — are an effective short- to medium-term solution. But because they disrupt the natural flow of sediments, they can worsen erosion elsewhere on the coast, sometimes starving neighboring communities of much needed sand.

The eastern coast of Ghana offers a stark illustration of the trade-offs involved with groins. Once a thriving trading hub, the city of Keta has suffered massive coastal erosion in recent decades that forced more than half of the population to flee. Fort Prinzenstein, a landmark Danish castle that was once at the center of town now teeters on the shoreline, partially destroyed by the waves. A late government intervention allowed the construction of a sea defense wall and a series of groins that have saved what remains of the city’s elegant colonial buildings, which retain the eerie atmosphere of a ghost town.

But the last-ditch effort to save Keta has further exacerbated erosion in the village of Blekusu, located a little more than six miles to the east. “We are having so many problems because of those groins,” explains 68-year-old Alice Kwashi, a widow whose house has already been partially damaged by the waves. “The ocean has destroyed electric[al] lines and contaminated water wells. Every time I go to sleep, I know it could be my last night, because the waves could take me away.”


A home destroyed by rising sea levels in the village of Agbavi in Togo.

A more environmentally friendly method of replenishing the coast involves pumping enormous amounts of sand from the seabed back on shore. But beach nourishment, which has been tried in the United States, Mexico, Australia, and the Netherlands, among other places, is extremely expensive and has to be repeated every few years in order to keep pace with erosion. Even without such costly interventions, adapting to coastal erosion by rebuilding infrastructure farther inland and resettling endangered communities is expected to cost between 5 and 10 percent of GDP in affected countries, according to the United Nations. It’s an open question how one of the poorest regions in the world should come up with the resources for costly sea walls and beach replenishment schemes.

And as long as man-made climate change continues, such costs will continue to incur. That is why countries around the world face the challenge not only of pursuing projects to help manage the environment, but also of exploring new ways to better live in harmony with it, and thus slow the rate of global warming.

“If we can’t find a balance between our insatiable appetite for modernity and allowing nature to replenish itself,” says Fredua Agyeman, the environment director at Ghana’s Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, “we will always run into problems, no matter the advancements in modern science or engineering.”

The people of Fuvemeh are among hundreds of millions who are paying a heavy price for a problem they didn’t create. At the current erosion rate, villagers predict that their homes will disappear in less than six months. Left with the bitter choice of staying to be swept out to sea or abandoning his land, history, and way of life, Buabasah doesn’t know what to do. He has moved his wife and children to another village, but he can’t follow them because Fuvemeh serves as his fishing base. Migrating would mean giving up on his job and his ability to feed his family, since the government will only facilitate resettlement to inland communities.

“I am very afraid for the future of this place,” he says in despair. “Sooner or later we will have to leave, but we have nowhere to go.”

View the photo essay companion piece on the devastating effects of climate change on the region “The Waves Will Take Us Away,” by Matilde Gattoni.


Matteo Fagotto is a Milan-based journalist focused on human rights and climate change issues. He is the co-founder with photographer Matilde Gattoni of Tandem Reportages. On Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/matteojournalist/

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

What are your thoughts on the cutting of subsidies in Sudan?
Sudanese govt. plans to cut subsidies again in 2016

Sudanese govt. plans to cut subsidies again in 2016
December 8 - 2015 KHARTOUM

A grocery in Omdurman (file photo)
The Sudanese Minister of Finance has urged the Parliament to endorse the government’s plan to introduce new cuts to subsidies on basic goods and services in next year's budget.

Minister Badreldin Mahmoud said in remarks before the federal Parliament on Monday that during the past year SDG10.5 billion ($1.7 billion) were allocated to subsidies.

The subsidy cuts on wheat, electricity, and fuel will enable the government to direct funds to other productive sectors, in order to bring the country out of the current “economic bottleneck” and “distress” currently experienced by the Sudanese people, the Minister said.

He pledged to increase wages and pensions, and to widen social safety net to support the poor through the provision of basic goods and the reduction of government expenditure, Sudan Tribune reported today.

The Minister urged the national and state Parliaments to increase productivity, and transform Sudan “from a consuming nation to a producing country”.

The 2016 budget aims to reduce inflation and imports, direct more resources to agricultural production, and boost non-oil revenues.

While the official rate of the Sudanese Pound against the US Dollar stands fixed at approximately SDG6.0771, the black market rate recently witnessed a new low of SDG11.5. This means that the prices of basic goods imported from abroad will rise again.

In late September 2013, the government cut the main subsidies on fuel. During nationwide protests, several hundreds of demonstrators were killed and wounded.

 

[Misreeya]

What are your thoughts on the cutting of subsidies in Sudan?
Sudanese govt. plans to cut subsidies again in 2016

Actually, I don't like it, and the fact that we don't get much direct investments like before South Sudan separated makes these cuts in subsidies hard to the average person but i reckon this is the only choice given the current situation since we are sanction by all Western countries, since we are considered a terrorist state.

 

[Poitier]

Germany says time is right for an African 'Marshall Plan'

12 NOV 2016 10:06ANDREA SHALAL, ERIK KIRSCHBAUM, JOHN STONESTREET

1000
Chancellor Angela Merkel is anxious to stop growing numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea. (Getty)

Germany urged other developed countries on Friday to support a plan it is finalising to bolster the economies of Africa, create jobs and slow the flow of migrants from the continent to Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her officials, anxious to stop growing numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea, are pushing for increased public and private investment in Africa.

Development Minister Gerd Mueller said Germany would in coming weeks release details of what he called a new “Marshall Plan with Africa” — drawing a direct parallel with the huge United States investment programme that kick-started the ravaged German economy after World War Two.

“We have to invest in these countries and give people perspectives for the future,” he told a news conference.

“If the youth of Africa can’t find work or a future in their own countries, it won’t be hundreds of thousands, but millions that make their way to Europe.”

• READ MORE: 7 surprising things about asylum seekers from Africa—where Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal beat Libya and Somalia

The International Organisation for Migration last week said nearly 160 000 people had crossed the Mediterranean from Africa to Italy this year, while 4 220 had died trying.

Mueller noted that in addition to the migrants already looking to come to Europe, there were about 20-million displaced people in Africa.

He said these issues needed to be recognised by the international community, and Africa should have representation on the United Nations Security Council.

Mueller said his plan was aimed at developing joint solutions with African countries, with a big focus on programmes for youth, education and training and on strengthening economies and the rule of law.

Merkel raised similar issues during a visit to Africa last month, and during a meeting of the G20 industrialised countries in China.

Mueller said a significant share of his ministry’s proposed budget increase of over 1 billion euros for 2017 would be earmarked for projects in Africa.

Germany this week pledged a 61-million-euro ($67-million) hike in funding for UN relief operations in Africa. — Reuters


Germany says time is right for an African 'Marshall Plan'

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Germany says time is right for an African 'Marshall Plan'

12 NOV 2016 10:06ANDREA SHALAL, ERIK KIRSCHBAUM, JOHN STONESTREET

1000
Chancellor Angela Merkel is anxious to stop growing numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea. (Getty)

Germany urged other developed countries on Friday to support a plan it is finalising to bolster the economies of Africa, create jobs and slow the flow of migrants from the continent to Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her officials, anxious to stop growing numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea, are pushing for increased public and private investment in Africa.

Development Minister Gerd Mueller said Germany would in coming weeks release details of what he called a new “Marshall Plan with Africa” — drawing a direct parallel with the huge United States investment programme that kick-started the ravaged German economy after World War Two.

“We have to invest in these countries and give people perspectives for the future,” he told a news conference.

“If the youth of Africa can’t find work or a future in their own countries, it won’t be hundreds of thousands, but millions that make their way to Europe.”

• READ MORE: 7 surprising things about asylum seekers from Africa—where Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal beat Libya and Somalia

The International Organisation for Migration last week said nearly 160 000 people had crossed the Mediterranean from Africa to Italy this year, while 4 220 had died trying.

Mueller noted that in addition to the migrants already looking to come to Europe, there were about 20-million displaced people in Africa.

He said these issues needed to be recognised by the international community, and Africa should have representation on the United Nations Security Council.

Mueller said his plan was aimed at developing joint solutions with African countries, with a big focus on programmes for youth, education and training and on strengthening economies and the rule of law.

Merkel raised similar issues during a visit to Africa last month, and during a meeting of the G20 industrialised countries in China.

Mueller said a significant share of his ministry’s proposed budget increase of over 1 billion euros for 2017 would be earmarked for projects in Africa.

Germany this week pledged a 61-million-euro ($67-million) hike in funding for UN relief operations in Africa. — Reuters


Germany says time is right for an African 'Marshall Plan'

For some reason I always preferred Germany than those other European nations.

 

[Red Shield]

For some reason I always preferred Germany than those other European nations.

they were late to the colonial/empire game.. so didn't have time to imprint a negative view unlike uk/france/etc.



Merkel is right tho... best way to handle the problem outside of war

Got some other ideas about this. Don't think it would be possible because of countries like France.

 

[newworldafro]

Germany says time is right for an African 'Marshall Plan'

12 NOV 2016 10:06ANDREA SHALAL, ERIK KIRSCHBAUM, JOHN STONESTREET

1000
Chancellor Angela Merkel is anxious to stop growing numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea. (Getty)

Germany urged other developed countries on Friday to support a plan it is finalising to bolster the economies of Africa, create jobs and slow the flow of migrants from the continent to Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her officials, anxious to stop growing numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea, are pushing for increased public and private investment in Africa.

Development Minister Gerd Mueller said Germany would in coming weeks release details of what he called a new “Marshall Plan with Africa” — drawing a direct parallel with the huge United States investment programme that kick-started the ravaged German economy after World War Two.

“We have to invest in these countries and give people perspectives for the future,” he told a news conference.

“If the youth of Africa can’t find work or a future in their own countries, it won’t be hundreds of thousands, but millions that make their way to Europe.”

• READ MORE: 7 surprising things about asylum seekers from Africa—where Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal beat Libya and Somalia

The International Organisation for Migration last week said nearly 160 000 people had crossed the Mediterranean from Africa to Italy this year, while 4 220 had died trying.

Mueller noted that in addition to the migrants already looking to come to Europe, there were about 20-million displaced people in Africa.

He said these issues needed to be recognised by the international community, and Africa should have representation on the United Nations Security Council.

Mueller said his plan was aimed at developing joint solutions with African countries, with a big focus on programmes for youth, education and training and on strengthening economies and the rule of law.

Merkel raised similar issues during a visit to Africa last month, and during a meeting of the G20 industrialised countries in China.

Mueller said a significant share of his ministry’s proposed budget increase of over 1 billion euros for 2017 would be earmarked for projects in Africa.

Germany this week pledged a 61-million-euro ($67-million) hike in funding for UN relief operations in Africa. — Reuters


Germany says time is right for an African 'Marshall Plan'

Destroy Libya, a prosperous country, which was trying to unite the continent under a single currency and keep migrants at bay, then talk about an emergency Marshall Plan for Africa brehs....

 

[newworldafro]

 

[Yehuda]

Nigeria to procure 40 rice mills

November 10, 2016 | Agency Report

The Federal government says it is facilitating the procurement of additional 40 large-scale rice mills to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production by 2018.

Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday at a workshop themed “Big Boost for Agro Diversification and Export.’’

Mr. Ogbeh said that the Integrated Rice Mills (IRMs) of the Ministry had increased the rice milling capacity in the country.

He said the ministry’s new goal was to attain self-sufficiency in food production and annually export 10 million metric tonnes of food to ECOWAS region and beyond by 2019.

According to the minister, the country’s food import bill has further declined from N1.1 trillion in 2009 to N684 billion in 2013.

“Nigeria has huge agricultural potentials with 11 million hectares of arable land but only cultivates 40 per cent; 263 billion cubic metres of water with two of the largest rivers in Africa.

“We have a cheap labour force to support agriculture intensification. We grow our food, feed ourselves and create local and international markets for our farmers and also unlock our enormous potentials in agriculture.

“We can achieve the economic diversification goal of government and surmount the present economic recession.

“I hope with the help of the Pentair, Good Rain, Dayu irrigation, Zhong Zhou Poultry, Jinan and our local companies, we will diversify and get out of recession in no time,’’ Mr. Ogbeh said.

Don Ekesiobi, Managing Director, Eurobase Nigeria Limited, the workshop organiser, said his company and the Ministry of Agriculture brought to Nigeria six world leading agro companies for partnership.
Mr. Ekesiobi said that the companies would introduce and showcase for adoption, technologies to turn around neglected agro value chain of the country in six months.

“I hereby state that any state, local government, commercial and private agro company that adopts and partner with these corporations will be on their way out of recession within a short time.

“Nigeria’s arable land has capacity to generate 100 billion dollar annually, if we take agro chain value seriously this time.

“If Chile and other countries can survive on agriculture with huge favour, Nigeria can do the same if it adopts and applies the right technology,’’ he said.

He urged states, local governments and stakeholders to identify crops that are adaptable to their terrain.

Mr. Ekesiobi added that the partnership would boost and achieve sustainable economic growth and job creation in the country.

(NAN)

Nigeria to procure 40 rice mills

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Why the recent efforts to rehabilitate Sudan's image? Did they not chemically gas Darfuris last week? Are they not starving Nuba people? @Misreeya
Riding the Nile train: could lifting US sanctions get Sudan's railway on track?

Riding the Nile train: could lifting US sanctions get Sudan's railway on track?


Officials in Sudan hope Obama will ease the ban on importing much-needed spare parts for the country’s neglected rail network


In a dilapidated, poverty-stricken country where some railway rolling stock is more than 40 years old, Sudan’s sleek, sharp-nosed Nile train is an unusual sight. Photograph: Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images

Global development is supported by About this content
Simona Foltyn in Atbara

@SimonaFoltyn
Monday 14 November 2016 13.23 GMTLast modified on Monday 14 November 2016 16.03 GMT

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Riding the train from Khartoum to Sudan’s north-eastern city of Atbara brings back a flood of bittersweet memories for Abdelhalim Tayeb of what Sudan’s railway once represented.

“When it came to trains, Sudan used to be a role model for other countries,” said the 59-year-old businessman. “Now all we have is this train from Khartoum to Atbara.”

Sudan’s railway network, built in the late 19th century under what was effectively British colonial rule, used to be the backbone of the country’s economy and symbol for national unity and pride. But US sanctions – first imposed in 1997 in reaction to President Omar al-Bashir’s propensity to harbour extremists, and then tightened in 2006 for human rights violations in Darfur – have contributed to the demise of Africa’s second largest railway.

The impact has sent ripples through Sudan’s economy, driving up the cost of the movement of goods and passengers and eroding the competitiveness of Sudan’s export commodities.

“The sanctions are directly affecting the people – they don’t affect the government,” said Mohammed Taha, the general manager of Sudan Railway Corporation (SRC), one of 170 government entities banned by the US Treasury.

Sudanese officials hope they can convince the Obama administration to ease sanctions on much-needed spare parts during its final weeks in office.

Despite President Obama’s recent decision to renew the trade embargo for another year, the State Department described the extension as a technical formality that didn’t preclude sanctions relief should the government of Sudan make steps to resolve internal conflicts. Negotiations to legalise the importation of spare parts for trains and planes have been ongoing for months.

Taha claims that a partial lifting of the sanctions would allow the SRC to accelerate plans to revive strategic sections of its 5,000km long but out-dated network, which once ran from the Red Sea all the way to Wau in what is South Sudan today.

As part of the plan, the Khartoum–Atbara passenger service was the first to re-open in 2014 after China, one of few countries that still deals with Sudan in spite of the sanctions, supplied new trains and railway sleepers to upgrade the track.

The “Nile train” has proven popular among Sudanese for cultural reasons, but even more so financially. The relatively affordable train offers some relief to an increasingly impoverished population reeling from Sudan’s crippling economy and rising fuel prices. A one-way ticket along the 330km route costs £3.50, a third less than the public bus.


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Abdelhalim Tayeb (right) riding the train from Khartoum to Atbara. Photograph: Simona Foltyn
“The train is cheaper, more comfortable and safer than the bus,” said businessman Tayeb.

“I wish they could connect all of Sudan’s cities,” said Zakia Ali, another passenger on the train. “They should also build a train within Khartoum, where we suffer most from rising transport costs.”

While Sudan’s pivot to China has offered some respite from the US’s stifling sanction regime, it has its limitations. Sudanese railway officials lament that many Chinese firms have yielded to US pressure and stopped dealing with the SRC, forcing it to procure equipment through shady agents at higher cost and questionable quality.

“Chinese production doesn’t last very long,” said conductor Mudassir Rabi’ Hassan, his seat bouncing up and down as the train crept over the rickety track. “The Chinese renovated this track only a few years back. But it’s very bad.”

Although the Nile train is only a couple of years old, the poor condition of the track doesn’t allow it to exceed a speed of 60 kmph.

Rabi’ Hassan hopes that the partial lifting of US sanctions on spare parts could restore Sudan’s railways to the popularity it enjoyed in its glory days of the 1970s, when state-of-the-art US- and German-made trains transported 2 million passengers and 3.5m tonnes of commodities destined for export via Port Sudan.

“The American locomotives were very powerful. They lasted a long time and were well suited for Sudan’s environment,” Rabi’ Hassan said.

Today, after almost two decades of sanctions, only 18 of the SRC’s 106 US-made locomotives remain in service. The SRC’s sprawling workshop in Atbara resembles a graveyard, dotted with numerous train carcasses, which have been cannibalised down to the last screw to keep the remaining locomotives on life support.

Nowhere has the socioeconomic impact of the railway’s demise been as far reaching as in Atbara, where everyone’s existence was somehow tied to what was once Sudan’s largest employer.

“The railway is finished,” said Kaltoom Ilias, a tea lady who was serving up deliciously spiced Sudanese coffee to a handful of railway workers gathered beside one of the dilapidated SRC buildings. “I raised five children on this tea stall. Now I can barely feed myself.”


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Kaltoom Ilias’ tea stall near the workshops of the Sudan Railway Corporation in Atbara. Photograph: Simona Foltyn
While the impact of the sanctions on the railway is clear in its physical deterioration, the misguided domestic policies that led to its institutional demise are something SRC officials tend to omit.

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But speak to almost anyone in Atbara, once the bastion of Sudan’s trade unions, and a different story emerges. The railway had passed its heyday long before the onset of the sanctions regime.

Hassan Ahmed El Sheikh, a former secretary of the railway union, believes the main reason for the railway’s decline was the late President Jafaar Nimeiri’s restructuring programme. Launched in 1975, the programme aimed to weaken the power of the syndicates, which organised frequent strikes that paralysed the railway-dependent economy.

“Nimeiri started transferring the troublemakers to small towns,” said El Sheikh, who worked as the railway’s accountant for 30 years. “And the highly qualified workforce ended up leaving their jobs for other industries.”

When Omar al-Bashir took power in 1989, mass dismissals of railway employees continued as part of the regime’s attempts to consolidate power over the civil service in what Sudanese refer to as “tamkeen”.

“They started to recruit politicians who lacked the relevant experience,” El Sheikh recalled. He was one of thousands of technocrats forced into early retirement in 1991. More than 20,000 employees were fired between 1975 and 1991.

Although dissidents like El Sheikh blame the government for destroying the Sudan’s railway, they agree with the state on one thing.

“The sanctions aren’t justified. And they haven’t affected those in power.”

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Destroy Libya, a prosperous country, which was trying to unite the continent under a single currency and keep migrants at bay, then talk about an emergency Marshall Plan for Africa brehs....

Was Germany even apart of that?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Nigeria to procure 40 rice mills

November 10, 2016 | Agency Report

The Federal government says it is facilitating the procurement of additional 40 large-scale rice mills to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production by 2018.

Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday at a workshop themed “Big Boost for Agro Diversification and Export.’’

Mr. Ogbeh said that the Integrated Rice Mills (IRMs) of the Ministry had increased the rice milling capacity in the country.

He said the ministry’s new goal was to attain self-sufficiency in food production and annually export 10 million metric tonnes of food to ECOWAS region and beyond by 2019.

According to the minister, the country’s food import bill has further declined from N1.1 trillion in 2009 to N684 billion in 2013.

“Nigeria has huge agricultural potentials with 11 million hectares of arable land but only cultivates 40 per cent; 263 billion cubic metres of water with two of the largest rivers in Africa.

“We have a cheap labour force to support agriculture intensification. We grow our food, feed ourselves and create local and international markets for our farmers and also unlock our enormous potentials in agriculture.

“We can achieve the economic diversification goal of government and surmount the present economic recession.

“I hope with the help of the Pentair, Good Rain, Dayu irrigation, Zhong Zhou Poultry, Jinan and our local companies, we will diversify and get out of recession in no time,’’ Mr. Ogbeh said.

Don Ekesiobi, Managing Director, Eurobase Nigeria Limited, the workshop organiser, said his company and the Ministry of Agriculture brought to Nigeria six world leading agro companies for partnership.
Mr. Ekesiobi said that the companies would introduce and showcase for adoption, technologies to turn around neglected agro value chain of the country in six months.

“I hereby state that any state, local government, commercial and private agro company that adopts and partner with these corporations will be on their way out of recession within a short time.

“Nigeria’s arable land has capacity to generate 100 billion dollar annually, if we take agro chain value seriously this time.

“If Chile and other countries can survive on agriculture with huge favour, Nigeria can do the same if it adopts and applies the right technology,’’ he said.

He urged states, local governments and stakeholders to identify crops that are adaptable to their terrain.

Mr. Ekesiobi added that the partnership would boost and achieve sustainable economic growth and job creation in the country.

(NAN)

Nigeria to procure 40 rice mills

I'm skeptical because all of the businesses ran by the Nigerian government have collapsed due to incompetence and looting.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Although, the Nigerian agro-sector should be exporting products I hate how this government believes that agriculture will save the country. The most productive agro-sectors are not labour-intensive so it won't solve Nigeria's unemployment problems. Moreover, the country has shytty infrastructure.

 

[Poitier]

Germany is the brains of the EU. Certainly not without blame.