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Africa Needs Continuous Economic Growth, Infrastructure, Dynamic Civil Service – Bello-Osagie
By Zeenat Sambo
African leaders have been urged to develop stable infrastructure in order to reduce the high cost of production deterring the populace from leveraging the continent’s huge business potential.
This call was made by a frontline business leader and entrepreneur, Hakeem Belo-Osagie.
Bello-Osagie spoke in an interview with APJ Chat anchor, Jameel Yusha’u, at Harvard Community School on the topic “Investment in Africa, Harnessing Untapped Possibilities.”
Belo-Osagie opined that Africa has critical minerals that are essential for the world of renewable energy like lithium, which is evident in Congo and that many countries have untapped potential in technology and telecommunications, which is crucial for sustainable development.
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“African countries are very ripe to have informal sectors formalised and brought in within the financial system and to help provide domestic market for farmers in the continent. Modern industries, renewable energy and facilities all require basic and human infrastructure backed with capable rules to develop business strategies and reduce huge cost of production to attract local and foreign investments.”
According to the Harvard guru, only when infrastructure is in place that we can have visible development.
“Uganda, Tanzania and Namibia in the future will have huge oil and gas exportation, the East Africa countries have shown advancement in the area of technology and finance while the West African countries like Nigeria and Ghana are also catching up in the area of Fintech, and Southern African countries are available in power and hope in electricity sector is huge and promising,” he added.
He noted that lack of national infrastructure push startups and other companies to provide their own infrastructure which imposes huge cost of production and the huge cost acquired cannot be competitive in the global market.
“China has a formidable infrastructure, Chinese government over the 20 years built roads, trains, electricity and others which enable business men to start companies at very low price and if Africa wants to be like the Chinese in the future to become the best manufacturing base in the world, which we could be given our demographic structure, we have to get infrastructure right because its only with infrastructure can we become competitive low cost nation”, he said.
In terms of economic growth, he said if the economy of a given African country does not grow above 4% to 5% annually and its population is still growing by 2% to 3%, then it means that the national economy is not progressing.
He urged African leaders to watch the issue of job creation to maintain its political and economic stability.
He advised countries with large populations like Nigeria to foster an enabling environment, create opportunities, and create a dynamic civil service with able and qualified people instead of handing off to the private sector.
“An important point for any African leader will be sustaining a very efficient and well run civil service,” he said.
Additionally, he encouraged Africans to avoid fear of economic colonisation and take advantage of business opportunities from both local and international sources to facilitate a quality business network with industrial experience for sustainable development of African countries.
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