The Wa Benzi

Damian Penny posted a link to this story in the Spectator (Registration Required) which ties in with my earlier post. Money quotes from the author Aidan Hartley.

" '‘Get off the corruption thing,'’ says Bob Geldof. The point is that nobody has got on to it properly yet. Aid-giving nations pretend to be tough on corruption, while African leaders pretend to change. Aid bureaucrats care less about financial probity than the press releases claiming that an economy is on a positive reform track. They are not helping Africa'’s young entrepreneurs. By throwing fiscal discipline to the wind and shovelling aid at Africa, the international bureaucrats will fuel a new renaissance in corruption.

Meanwhile, NGOs refuse to focus on corruption because it'’s simply not a priority for them. They blame corruption on Western multinationals. Charities are ideological museums stuffed with socialists and anti-globalisation activists. They loathe private enterprise. I sometimes wonder if they would prefer to see Africans stay poor so that aid workers could carry on doing good works for them.

Western pundits say the WaBenzi still exist because African culture is inherently sick, that black Africans can'’t help but admire the Big Men. This does ordinary Africans an injustice. The West needs to help them get better leaders before it increases aid. Make the WaBenzi declare their wealth to their electorates and donors. Name and shame those who drive expensive cars while their people starve. Encourage policies that will create wealth so that the only Africans buying Mercedes-Benzes are honest men and women. Unless this happens Africa'’s new aid package will not alleviate poverty, disease and ignorance. What it will definitely mean is more flashy limousines."

"Today, though, there is one man who is doing more than the Lord himself to buy a Mercedes-Benz for the leading creeps of the world. That man is of course Bob Geldof, the spur to our global conscience. Africa'’s leaders cannot wait for the G8 leaders,— hectored by Bob and Live 8 into bracelet-wearing submission, to double aid and forgive the continent'’s debts. They know that such acts of generosity will finance their future purchases of very swish, customised Mercedes-Benz cars, while 315 million poor Africans stay without shoes and Western taxpayers get by with Hondas. This is the way it goes with the WaBenzi, a Swahili term for the Big Men of Africa."

It will be interesting to see what happens at the G8 summit because Bob Geldof's African circus sideshow taking up so much press space no one is bringing up the fact that the anti-globalisation crowd is also coming and they will be looking for trouble.