“The blanket pardon applies to whoever been sentenced during the January 25 Revolution while trying to support the revolution,” the presidential decree read, adding that the amnesty excludes those convicted of murder.

Morsi’s legal consultant Mohamed Gadallah to Al-Jazeera Mubasha Misr, Monday evening, that the pardon will include military officers who were arrested for participating in pro-revolution protests.

A few days earlier, during a speech in the Cairo Stadium to commemorate the 1973 ’6 October War’, Morsi gave himself a performance review, looking back at the promises he made when taking office.

“I take responsibility with you and before you for the 100 days and beyond the 100 days,” he said before offering statistics on how many goals he had achieved.

One of his promises concerned the improvement of the quality and availability of bread, which poor Egyptians had to queue for during former President Hosni Mubarak’s era. In some instances, deadly fights over bread broke out between people queuing. “Around 80 per cent of the goals have been achieved,” Morsi claimed, adding that quality still needs to be improved. A watchdog website, called “Morsi Meter”, which was set up to follow up on Morsi’s promises, tells a different story. Of the 13 promises Morsi made regarding bread, only three have been achieved and seven more were in progress, according to the site.

As for the availability of household gas and fuel at the pump, both of which have been in short supply and which was another one of Morsi’s promises, Morsi said to have achieved ’85 per cent of the household needs of gas cylinders’. He added that among the reasons for not doing better was the smuggling of fuel. “In just two months, 23 million litres of fuel have been seized,” he said. However, the Morsi Meter reported that of the five promises related to fuel, only the promise to implement deterrent punishments for smugglers has been achieved, while one of the remaining four is in progress.

Regarding security, Morsi said that 70 per cent of his goals have been achieved. He saluted the men of the Interior ministry for their efforts. The Morsi Meter claims that only one of the promises Morsi made regarding security has been met: to give promotions and benefits to police officers, commensurate with performance.

As far as traffic was concerned, Morsi claimed that he had achieved 60 per cent of his promises. The Morsi Meter estimates that only one of his 21 promises has been completed. And regarding the removal of garbage around 40 per cent of the promises were achieved, Morsi claimed. He said over 600,000 tons of garbage have been removed from the Greater Cairo region, 200,000 tons from Alexandria and 350,000 from other governorates. According to Morsi Meter, this is the only sector in which all of the president’s goals have either been achieved or are in progress.

In the political area there was more criticism.. Ahmed Imam, a member of the National Front for the Portection of the Revolution (NFPR), dismissed the five presidential promises as “only electoral slogans which were unattainable in 100 days.” Rather it was more important, he said, to focus on Morsi’s failure to use the “historic revolutionary moment to change Egypt’s approach to its economy.”

“Instead of forging economic policies in favour of the poor by setting a minimum and maximum wage, forcing progressive taxation and renationalising the country’s robbed companies, Morsi chose to side with the rich and follow the same path as the old ruling party in depending on loans,” Imam opined, referring to the controversial $4.8 billion sum from the International Monetary Fund that Morsi’s administration is currently negotiating.

On the level of freedom of expression there is concern about the position of journalists and the freedom of speech. Particularly worrisome is the rise of cases of “contempt of religion”. Last month, Coptic Christian schoolteacher Bishoy Kamel was sentenced to six years in prison for posting cartoons on Facebook deemed defamatory to Islam, the Prophet Mohamed, President Morsi and Morsi’s family.

Another case which sparked national and international uproar last week was the detention of two Coptic children charged with insulting Islam. The nine and ten year olds, who allegedly tore up verses of the Quran, were shortly released pending investigation.

Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) also complained that the return of the police had conversely increased instances of citizen rights violations. “Morsi and his government still adopt the view that if they reform the police institution [as rights groups have been demanding] they will not be able to regain control of the security situation, a view which we completely reject,” Bahgat said. According to an EIPR investigation due to be released next week, Bahgat asserted, “the level of torture witnessed at the hands of police in the past month and a half is equivalent to that witnessed in the past 18 months.”

Rights activist Aida Seif El-Dawla of the Nadeem Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence agreed, adding that over the course of the last few months the increase in police presence has contributed to the levels of violence during instances of social unrest. Student sit-ins have been violently dispersed, the rights advocate continued, for example when a month-long Nile University protest was forcefully evacuated by Central Security Forces (CSF) three weeks ago. Workers’ strikes were similarly attacked using “old [regime] tactics” such as police cooperating with the business owners’ hired private security, Seif El-Dawla added.

An increase in employees taking industrial action has been one of the most significant developments during the last 100 days. Since early July, transport workers, doctors and teachers have all staged intermittent strikes and protests against low pay and deteriorating living standards.

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans [at] planet.nl

Many of these indices are directly relevant for people working in development. They help countries determine how they compare with other states and where they ought to improve their performance. And they help aid agencies decide where and how to invest their resources.

Indicators tracking everything from GDP per capita to poverty to governance are ubiquitous across the field, especially among international professionals. Such numbers are used to determine need, priorities, and strategies (such as whether a government ought to be funded directly).

But do the indicators that have the greatest influence measure the right things? Are they focused on the issues that are most important to development? Can they predict how governments work or how countries will evolve in the future?

Too often, developing countries are assessed on a very narrow set of indicators, leading to an overemphasis on certain programs and “results” that have little to do with their prospects. Reducing poverty and hunger are worthwhile goals but may not reflect how well a country is doing (aid can reduce both without helping a state function better). “Good governance” may indicate good prospects, but bad governance certainly does not point to the reverse, as a long string of countries can attest to (including China, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam). GDP per capita is widely used to assess how well countries are doing (not least by the World Bank and many leading poverty analysts), but may actually be saying very little about the subject (such as when only elites benefit from natural resource wealth, as in Nigeria, Libya, and Angola).

Indicators on state fragility can easily miss the mark. The Failed States Index, for instance, completely failed to pick up the fault lines that threaten many Middle Eastern countries before the Arab Spring brought them into the open. The 2011 FSI ranked Syria as the 48th most fragile state in the world, but its complex ethnic and religious landscape has always made it far more fragile than it appeared. In 2012, Syria plummeted down to 23rd in the FSI. Next year, it will inevitably be much worse. Bahrain and Libya did not even make the ranking before 2011.

Many of the most important issues for development are not tracked and not included in major indices because they are not easily measured or are simply not considered as important as they ought to be.

In Fixing Fragile States, I wrote:

Development describes a complex process that transforms both the way people think and behave and the system of how they work together. Although economics drives development, politics plays a far greater role in the key take-off stages, with social, business, and government modernization inextricably linked as the process advances.

Do we ever measure how well a people work together? How institutionalized politics is (something quite different than democracy and “good governance”)? How cohesive a population is?

Assessing a country’s political dynamics may not be easy—especially if the goal is to measure it numerically—but is arguably more important than the majority of the indicators we currently use. The right kind of assessment ought to better gauge how resilient a country is, how prone to conflict it is, how stable its current political system is, how likely its elites are to work together to promote progress. All these things help us understand a country’s overall prospects in a way that few existing indicators can.

Measuring politics and political development requires creating a set of indices that reflect—or at least depend upon—the nature of sociopolitical dynamics, the degree of social / political / economic inclusiveness, the institutionalization of the state, the robustness of the rule of law, the level of social capital, the capacity of societies to create wealth (separate from natural resources), and the ability of government to get things done (which may not reflect existing governance scores).

What would these indicators look like? The new assessment criteria would seek to answer questions such as:

1. How great are group-based (ethnic, religious, caste, clan, etc.) economic, political, and cultural horizontal inequities?
2. How equitable is public spending?
3. How equitable are markets?
4. How equitable is the rule of law? Do elites or particular groups have systemic advantages over others?
5. How effective is public authority and the rule of law (taking into account a variety of mechanisms to achieve these)?
6. How inclusive is the concept of citizenship?
7. How equitable is the system of property rights?
8. How inclusive and poverty reducing is growth?
9. How diversified is the economy and exports (which depends on the robustness of institutions)?
10. Is political succession institutionalized and predictable?
11. How much does politics revolve around political parties and policies (rather than ethnicity and patronage)?
12. How much do political leaders depend on group identities to gain, hold onto, or compete for power?
13. How well do formal institutions (such as laws) reflect informal institutions? How widely accepted are these? How well do they penetrate society (as opposed to existing above it)?
14. How much investment is going into large factories (which are more risky than other investments)?
15. What is the level of political risk to invest in a labor-intensive businesses (which require more effort and are more beneficial to a population)?
16. Is the economy producing an adequate number of jobs for young people?
17. How well can the government implement the policies it puts into place (if a road is supposed to be built, does it? How good is it?)?
18. How well can the government project authority across distance (is it as effective in outlying districts as it is in the capital)?
19. Are the government’s capacity and the country’s economic prospects keeping up with increases in education, urbanization, and the expectations of the population?
20. Are levels of dissatisfaction/frustration rising among powerful out of power actors (elites, identity group leaders, youth leaders, religious leaders, etc.)?
21. How secure are populations and property?
22. Are elites sending their cash abroad?
23. Is diaspora returning to invest money, run government offices, and build NGOs?
24. Where do children of elites reside?
25. Are there geographical features (like mountains, deserts, or jungles) that make integrating the population, reducing inequities, or projecting government authority permanently difficult?

Some of these questions could be turned into indicators very easily (the data is available). Others could be turned into indicators by substituting another data source (for instance, tracking how well a government delivers public services at various distances from the capital will give a decent account of how well it projects authority). Many may be hard to assess, and require a more a concerted effort involving more spending on research and analysis.

If politics and political development mattered as much as they should, more effort would be made to create and use such indicators. Without these, we are flying blind, trying to understand the terrain using the wrong instruments.

AUTHOR: Seth Kaplan
URL: http://www.fragilestates.org
E-MAIL: seth [at] sethkaplan.org

[Eugene Terre'Blanche against the backdrop of an AWB flag, From The Guardian via Google Images]

Obviously a great deal has transpired across the continent in recent weeks. And nowhere has seen fissures split wider than in South Africa (a post on the ramifications of the mining strike will follow). One of the stories that caught my eye and that connects the country’s tortured past with its still sometimes troubled presence was the sentencing of the killer of Eugene Terre’Blanche.

Terre’Blanche was a fascinating but repulsive figure. The leader of the far-right paramilitary Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB — Afrikaner Resistance Movement) Terre’Blanche was unrepentant in his continued calls for white supremacy and Afrikaner nationalism. He was known for brutalizing the black farmworkers he employed (and some he did not) and continued to call for an all-white state within South Africa if he could not claim the whole. Most of the time Terre’blanche was a clown, but it is easy to forget that he was a clown with a disturbing number of followers who fomented resistance to the CODESA meetings that resulted in the negotiated settlement that ended Apartheid and led to the election of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.

Millions of South Africans wept no tears when Terre’blanche was killed at his home in 2010. Nonetheless his killer, Chris Mahlangu, was convicted (along with a young accomplice) and last week was sentenced to life in prison, plus fifteen years. Mahlangu and Terre’Blanche were involved in a pay dispute. Judge John Horn decried the murder, rejected claims of extenuating circumstances, and handed down his sentence. Horn made clear that he did not find the murder to be racially motivated, but AWB members, many of whom had hung Mahlangu in effigy in somewhat alarming imagery given the context, nonetheless celebrated.

There are few easy moral lessons from the death of Terre’Blanche. He was a thug and a bully and a racist. He waved the AWB banner, evocative of the Nazi Swastika, and was a bittereinder who believed in white supremacy and celebrated Apartheid to the last. Except in certain AWB circles he will not be missed and his death was a tragedy in only the narrowest of senses.

Yet the sentencing of Mahlangu is also a good thing. Terre’Blanche was loathsome, but loathsomeness does not justify murder. In the New South Africa the black murderer of perhaps the country’s most notorious racial demagogue will spend the rest of his life in prison. And this qualifies as progress.

AUTHOR: Derek Charles Catsam
URL: http://africa.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: derekcatsam [at] hotmail.com

Introduction

Ze hebben 50,000 gegeven om hun verhaal aan de Diapora in Nederland te verkopen. Maar de steun die ze in NL aanboren is onstabiel en labiel, een groep die nergens geworteld is, en die zich nergens thuis voelt…..Wat ze doen is de mensen afhouden van de samenleving waaruit ze nooit meer vertrekken, om ze lekker te maken voor iets wat ze nooit zullen krijgen, nl stemrecht in Suriname (Natascha Adama, FACEBOOK).

(Dutch Translation: They spent 50,000 euro’s to sell their story to the Diaspora in the Netherlands, on an unstable and fragile support market. What is the purpose of this action, when taking into account that the Surinamese Diaspora in the Netherlands, specifically in Amsterdam South-East is not rooted in neither the Dutch society nor the Surinamese……Why are they (NDP) keeping the Diaspora rooting, given the fact that they will never leave, baiting them with voting rights, that will never be granted (by this government)

The 2010 elections in Suriname uncloaked a new support market, a market determined by the Diaspora in Europe. Why is this development so very interesting? And what is the relevance of said support market?

What immediately springs to mind is why is this category so important for the National Democratic Party (NDP), what are they trying to achieve by wooing a group of foreigners, albeit with Surinamese ancestry? Will they offer this category people the vote?

Separation of Nationality and The Rights of the Diaspora

The Independence treaty dictated a strict separation of nationalities, a legal separation that also became a social and economic divide, between Surinamese and the Diaspora. “We” in Suriname and “they” in “Holland”. The unambiguous character of the law on which this legal and social separation was build, was to rule out dual citizenship. Some members of the Surinamese government, the nationalist Eddy Bruma said that the Surinamese negotiators acquiesced to a monstrosity, and in fact betrayed the Surinamese people. Indeed very prophetic words, because the separation of nationality law infringed upon the rights of the citizens. Lawyers and law-makers had a hard time discerning the inner workings of this law, and could therefore not help repair the damage brought on by statelessness and loss of Dutch citizenship.

The issues surrounding citizenship enhanced the fraught, bitter and unequal relationship between Suriname and the Netherlands. At first it seemed that the Netherlands was calling the shots, specifically when after 1980, Surinamese citizens could only enter the Netherlands on a visa. The strict attitude of the Dutch government ensconced the fact that Suriname had up the 1980 exported its social and economic problems to the Netherlands: unemployment, lack of housing, political woes and economic misguidedness, all were exported, a demographic shift of epic proportions!

But the people who during the 1960 and 1970s sought economic refuge in the Netherlands came from different socio-economic backgrounds than the group that came in the 1950s and the people that came in the 1980s. The latter mentioned categories are typically better educated, middle class citizens, who left Suriname because of the political situation. This category had typically less difficulty to integrate into Dutch society and find employment. Specifically the group of immigrants that arrived in the 1950s are typically less interested in returning home.

At first people feared that the total loss of Dutch citizenship would prevent them from returning to their homes in case things did not work out. The political and economic situation in the 1980s and 1990s deterred many would-be immigrants from moving back to Suriname. There are no credible statistics on the number of people returning to Suriname, the Dutch Statistical Agency only records the number of people living the Netherlands. What we know is based on other sources, that 74% of Surinamese born, so called first generation immigrants, have indicated not to return to the motherland. This significant number might be interested to shuttle between the two countries, but of course that is private matter.

There is a small group of people living in Diaspora, whose identity appears to be closely connected to that what Suriname signifies, an identity tied to the soil, national pride and family relations. This brings us to a different dimension of identity, a dimension debated and prodded by a wide array of scholars. What actually constitutes identity? And what is the currency of identity? To make the aspect of identity more tangible, I want to focus on the plans by the incumbent government to grant the Diaspora certain social and economic rights, allowing them to work and live in Suriname, to start and own a business and to buy property.

It is unclear what brought on this move, because based on the aforementioned percentage, enthusiasm to return to the motherland is slight, at best.

Looking behind the backdrop of this plan, unveils a slew of ultier motives, a hidden agenda, to cash in on ‘identity’, ‘feelings of kinship’ and ‘nostalgia’…..For example, online discussion boards are swamped by individuals who decry the fact that they are discriminated against by the Dutch because of the color of their skin; Many of these individuals share the anti-colonial sentiments kindled by the incumbency,many also share the notion that the Netherlands has to compensate the descendants of slavery.

But it was the voting advice uttered during a speech by the Surinamese envoy, Jules Wijdenbos that tied the lose ends together. Mr Wijdenbos asserted that the Dutch treat Surinamese citizens ‘bad’, and that they should vote for a party that treats Surinamese better…..He also lamented the bad blood between the two governments, stating that the Surinamese government will no longer pay courtesy to the ‘high and mighty’ Dutch….Indeed the words of ‘nationalist’, a man whose mission consists of challenging the former colonizer, a man still living in the past. A man who appears to be living in a different reality, because in the recent months, the focus of Dutch foreign policy is firmly set on the European Union and Greece.

But what is the value of these words, when placed in terms of concrete action? Will it help the Diaspora, specifically the category that feels disenfranchised and marginalized by the Dutch government?

Political Support and Voting Rights

Before answering that question, it is imperative to find out if the social category in Suriname, specifically the category comparable to the Diaspora in Amsterdam South East (where the envoy gave voting advice) shows signs of social and economic improvement. In other words can the incumbent empower the Diaspora, by granting them certain rights, given the fact that their domestic track-record on reducing poverty and job creation is poor, at best?

What if anything will the Diaspora gain from this possible citizenship, given the fact that in Suriname today debate and opinion occur in the confines of society? What is the added value of moving from a free society to a partly free society, beside reaffirmation of identity and blood-ties?

Why did these people leave Suriname, in the first place? Was it not to escape poverty, lack of housing, and economic uncertainties? The social welfare state in the Netherlands remedied all these ailments, providing housing and economic security, without demanding that they become actual citizens. In fact the Netherlands always assumed that people would return to the fatherland, and consistently supported foundations and organisations, typically run by Surinamese, that claimed to work on solutions or schemes for return. There are no publications indicating possible success; a transformation in Dutch policy to drastically cut down subsidies for this type of foundation is also not a viable indicator, because said policy was brought on by other objectives.

There are other aspects that strengthen the notion that the Diaspora stands to gain little from this arrangement, other than perhaps a few token privileges. The incumbent government most likely bets on the docility of this specific category, their proclivity to abstain from political participation and their opportunism will benefit the Surinamese government tremendously. The fact that many feel disenfranchised by the Dutch government will help the Surinamese government to establish a solid support base abroad.

Indeed, there are indications that this category is supportive of the current Surinamese presidency. I found an intricate web of networks that run from the underworld back to the upper world, networks involving the earlier mentioned foundations and organizations, that help spread the message of “neo-colonialism” , “White Oppression”, Uncle Toms and Bounties. These networks also involve a number of individuals previously active in foundations and grass root organizations that worked to empower specific social categories., and who are currently active as consultants in Suriname.

Conclusion

The relevance of the Surinamese Diaspora will however become more clear if the crisis in Suriname really starts to hurt the socially and economically weak. At this moment, things are slowly but surely progressing in a downward fashion. Poverty and unemployment are on the rise, while political infighting and corruption are soaring. There are strong indications that democracy is under tremendous pressure; observers mention lack of public opinion and debate, and a growing culture of fear. One observers calls Suriname, a cowboy country, or a country consisting of individuals who totally disregard the law.

The paradox here is that opinion and debate on the internet is on the rise, FACEBOOK and other social network sites, as well as the primary discussion boards. Polarization Rules, there is no middle ground, people are either pro Bouterse or anti Bouterse, just like the Cubans in Miami or the Venezuelans in Cary N.C., all avid haters of Castro respective Chavez.

But as the Surinamese political and economic crises crystallizes, becoming a full blown conflict, the role of the Diaspora will become more relevant……and it will be more challenging to unify the Diaspora, under the circumstances described in this blog….and that is the hidden agenda of Surinamese government, to divide and conquer, no matter what the cost.

AUTHOR: Natascha Adama
URL: http://natascha23.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: nataliapestova23 [@] yahoo.com

Sometimes, Mr. Benkirane, despite his political acumen, lets his truculence get the better of him and he trespasses on the patience of the King. He forgets his right and left limits and extends his line of fire to those who act under the aegis of the palace. Last month, when he accused Fouad Ali El himma and Mounir Majidi of filibustering his administration’s efforts to reform, he was forced to publicly apologize. He could have acknowledged his indiscretion privately, but there is a lesson to be learned in this public political coitus. Mr. Benkirane, a standard-bearer known for his political obduracy, needed his dignity wrung out. Schooling him on “makhzenian” sadomasochistic politics became necessary; the Moroccans needed to see with painful clarity who has true agency and realize there is no one on the scene yet with the spine to stand up to the elite. As long as he is pandering to the King and his cabal, Mr. Benkirane can attack anybody else and gin up any self-serving polemic.

I am one to believe that Mr. Benkirane’s probity is a tool to settle scores and abdicate his responsibility to fulfill campaign promises. Last Monday, in a statement before the parliament and to the media, he announced it will take time for his budget minister to devise a workable economic model for recovery and stability. He confessed the country is headed towards economic austerity; the deficit figures reported by Salaheddine Mezouar, the previous Minister of Finance did not add up. The situation is so dire that Morocco had to call on the International Monetary Fund earlier this month to request a precautionary credit line of $6.2 billion. That’s in addition to over $2 billion borrowed from the World Bank and the African Development Bank in the past two years to optimize farming irrigation systems, improve electricity production and public transportation, prop up educational reform and rural roads programs, develop the financial sector, reform public administration, support infrastructure projects, and finance the Ouarzazate solar power project.

Many of these projects have already failed, or are so flagrantly mismanaged by an unaccountable and grossly opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy that their dismal flop is inevitable. Policies to improve living conditions in rural areas and combat illiteracy, to eradicate poverty and slums, to reduce unemployment, and to reform the health, judicial, and education sectors have all yielded derisory results. Three weeks ago, Mohamed El Ouafa, Minister of Education, officially admitted that the emergency program (2009 – 2012) designed to overhaul public education has failed. The program was introduced with a fanfaronade by Ahmed Akhchichine, El Ouafa’s predecessor, . Its budget exceeded $370 million. Is there a motion to hold Mr. Akhchichine accountable? Absolutely not! You see, Mr. Akhchichine is a protégé of Fouad Ali El Himma.

A study by Morocco’s recently reactivated Competition Council indicated that over 63% of business transactions are facilitated by bribes and 54% of businesses surveyed are driven by patronage. These are dejecting numbers. Mr. Benkirane was quick to point out that eradicating corruption, as he had promised during his campaign, will prove difficult. It is certainly a long-term project and success is not guaranteed.

For every promise made during his electoral campaign, Mr. Benkirane and his ministers have disclosed information to explain why it would be difficult to fulfill. In the coming months, Morocco’s deficit is projected to grow as it is posed to carry out the biggest grain import in thirty years; social woes are worsening; civil rights are declining, according to international human right organizations, as demonstrators are being violently suppressed and detained incommunicado. Mr. Benkirane’s government lacks the strategy that will protect the country from the vicissitudes of the global economy and advance it towards democracy. He is falling back on a familiar script when he said: “When I say that I am only the head of government, that is not to play down my importance. But it is the king who is our guarantor of stability and the key person with responsibility for constitutional implementation.” So, what took you so long to come out of this political closet and join the rest of the harem?

AUTHOR: Ahmed T. B. / Cabalamuse
URL: http://cabalamuse.wordpress.com/
E-MAIL: cabalafuse [at] hotmail.com

Introduction

1. Sustainable growth or long-term contraction?
Can the level of steady growth and development that the US, Japan and Western Europe experienced during the early Cold War, or the kind of growth that China, India and Brazil experienced in the last two decades be sustainable and carry with it the rest of the world economy? Was such growth  achieved at the expense of periphery nations exporting raw materials and importing manufactured goods, and could the uneven trade and income relationship on a world scale continue to provide sustainable development in the 21st century? Some believe this would be the case, but if the basic geographic and socioeconomic structure does not change, is it not reasonable to conclude the same problems will exist down the road, thus precipitating contraction within spurts of growth regionally instead of sustainable growth globally?

2. Globalization under the Neo-Liberal Model.
Will the era of globalization under the neo-liberal model persist, regardless of its detrimental impact on the welfare state and on laboring and middle class incomes? If the current model does not persist, will there be a trend toward regional blocs that will become increasingly protectionist? Will there be new models of integration in Europe and US to compete with China, or will there be increased tendency toward national economic sovereignty? This a difficult question to answer, for it challenges the imagination to see how globalization under neo-liberalism can proceed without precipitating self-destructive tendencies in the economy, and creating extreme social and political volatility.

3. Does the Bretton Woods best serve the 21st century economy?
Will international agencies, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank continue to play the significant role they have been in the last fifty years, or will there be a revision of Bretton Woods as the focus for economic growth shifts from West to East? Helping to manage the world economy has been easy for the IMF and World Bank because they have had the backing of governments, commercial banks and corporations behind them. How long this will last is a matter of public confidence in the political and financial institutions that back the IMF and World Bank. What if the consensus widens that these financial institutions are impediments to growth and national sovereignty, serving only very large corporate interests?

4. Concentrated Wealth and Chronic Poverty
Will there be a greater concentration of wealth or better distribution to allow for lessening of poverty and upward social mobility? Will the chronic problem of endemic poverty be solved around the world, or will it actually worsen and increasingly spread to  advanced countries as statistics currently indicate? There are optimists, arguing that endemic poverty can come to an end and upward social mobility can be realized. Maybe some day egalitarianism can be achieved, but it would have to come after systemic change in society and I seriously doubt that it will be in the 21st century that seems to be repeating some structural patterns of Imperialism in the 19th century, especially 1880-1914.

5. Global Struggle for Raw Materials
Will the struggle for water, minerals, and raw materials in general intensify and cause regional conflicts? All indications are that nations will fight on behalf of their corporation for control of raw materials and markets, using all kinds of ideological and political justifications to stake their claim. The struggle for raw materials and markets is never a ending one and it could explode into a global war in this century after a possible large-scale depression in the 2030s. However, the fear of mutual destruction owing to massive weaponry, including nuclear on the part of a number of countries, may be a deterrent.

6. What is the European Union’s role in the world economy? 
At the start of this decade, the situation appears more dire for the full and associate members of the Europe Union, once the envy of the world as the most progressive integration model of a regional bloc, but on the verge of an uncertain future. In 1947, President Harry Truman realized that without a strong and stable Europe, the US could not possibly be strong politically, economically and militarily. To some degree, this remains true today in the age of even greater inter-depedence in the world economy, and with Asian economic ascendancy threatening the traditional Western balance of power. Given that the US has spent its way into a weak monetary situation owing to record public debt and balance of payments deficits, it is in no position to help stabilize Europe as it did in 1947 with the Marshall Plan. This means that the Western nations face a very serious crisis that is at its root political but manifesting itself in the economy with social and political consequences. 

7. Can Developing Nations provide the stimulus for 21st century growth?
Can Africa, Latin America and smaller Asian and Eurasian nations that account for less than 20% of the world’s GDP provide the impetus for growth and sociopolitical stability in the 21st century, given that US, Western Europe and Japan seem to have reached a point of irresolvable contradictions in the political economy? The Third Third has the largest reserves of raw materials and cheapest labor with the largest potential for growth and development. Developing (or more accurately, underdeveloped nations) is where China certainly is investing for the 21st century, followed by the traditional G-7 nations also competing for markets and raw materials, especially strategic minerals.

Regional blocs, including the recently formed CELAC that includes 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries, but excludes the US and Canada, may have an impact on containing the globalization/neo-liberal momentum that swept across the world in the last two to three decades. Could regional blocs, nationalism and sociopolitical instability preclude the rapid growth and development of developing nations needed to provide a stimulus for the world economy in the 21st century? Does the fact that there is a heavy-handed foreign policy on the part of the US and its European partners help or hinder the development of underdeveloped nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East and Africa? Could the clash of civilizations – East versus West – continue to impede growth and development in the Islamic world that the US and the West has stigmatized with the war on terror?

8. Is finance capitalism at the root of economic volatility and decline? 
The combination of a number of things could mean a very difficult three to five years for the world economy, but longer-term there may be even bigger structural problems unless governments begin to do a better job of regulating, monitoring, and enforcing mechanisms of accountability. The idea of securing profits for the financial sector at the expense of the rest of society – profiting  when times are good and still profiting when times are bad – is not one that workers and the middle class will tolerate forever.

One can imagine a world in which banks and finance companies determine everything from monetary and fiscal policy to labor and social policy; a world where socioeconomic polarization is even worse than it was one hundred years ago on the eve of the Great War in 1914. This scenario does not have to play out, but given the current trends in the political economy of the West as well as other nations like Russia and India, it may be very plausible.

Society will not tolerate forever numerous banking scandals involving illegal activities, including deals with drug lords and other underground entities engaged in international weapons trade, while the taxpayer pays for bank bailouts. Perpetual manufactured speculation on government bonds that drives up rates and prevents a quick economic recovery in every sector from housing to manufacturing and keeping unemployment high is not something that society will tolerate forever.

The lack of a coordinated monetary policy on the part of central banks, with the ECB playing games with rhetoric instead of adopting a realistic monetary policy to free the regional bloc from its downward trend indicates that the creditor-debtor nation gap will impede growth and development, not just regionally, but globally. In the absence of monetary and fiscal policy intended to absorb the large unemployed and underemployed population and raise living standards does not leave room for optimism. Not only will there not be steady economic growth and development given the policies intended to concentrate capital in the top one percent of the world’s population, but there will not be harmonious social and political conditions in the rest of the decade or the rest of the century.

9. Can the BRIC nations save the world economy?
So where do we go in this century, given where we have been in the past and were we are currently with the BRIC nations providing some light at the end of the economic contraction cycle? The global economy at the start of the 21st century is not off to a good start, although the notable exceptions are Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) countries with enormous potential but with the largest percentage of the world’s population and the world’s poor. Besides having a serious poverty problem, BRIC nations are not exactly models of social justice or Norwegian-style democracies. Moreover, they have the potential of sociopolitical instability owing to the contradiction of rapid short-term GDP growth, while the poor-rich gap persists due to a very slow upward mobility that would account for a strong middle class. In short, the ‘Asian-Eurasian’ miracle has a limited time span with some structural risks.

10. Is there a Science/techno fix for society?
Can science and technology provide a solution to economic problems and can science and technology alter the consumerist atomistic values that go along with the existing political economy, or is the solution strictly political? Every government and every international organization from the UN agencies to the OECD emphasize that innovation is key to societal economic and social health in the 21st century. Science and technology will make vast strides to improving the quality of life, but that quality of life would be too expensive to afford for the majority of the earth’s population. Science and technology available today can solve world hunger and water shortage problems, but if it is not profitable for corporations to do so, it does not take place. Science and technology can provide medical assistance to children in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America, but if it is not profitable for pharmaceutical companies, they will do nothing. The science/techno-fix is a mirage unless policy is behind it to support its application to humanity, all of humanity.

11. Lessons from history
After the end of the Cold War, a number of scholars from around the world tried to determine what geopolitical model the world resembles, agreeing that most likely it is that of pre-1914. The world’s political economy based on globalization and neo-liberalism, combined with raw US-NATO military intervention in non-Western areas as a means of resolving conflict certainly suggests that we may be back in the pre-1914 era. However, history may resemble itself but never exactly repeats itself because conditions change on a daily basis. The world of regional blocs today is very different than the spheres of influence in the pre-WWII era, or even in the Cold War eras when the Soviet bloc, the US-bloc and the non-aligned represented a certain order with a degree of predictability. Today we have very distinct signs of instability in the political economy, signs that may predict sociopolitical instability.

a. Expansionary Cycle of neo-liberalism and globalization1980-2000
 Easy credit/low interest rate era of 1980-2000 coincided with the Reagan-Thatcher launch of strengthening corporate welfare capitalism at the expense of social welfare and middle class incomes. This era was also known for neo-liberal triumph and globalization embolded by the downfall of the Communist bloc. Finance capital took advantage of the impetus that neo-liberalism provided to free itself of many regulatory restrictions that had been in place as a safety net in periods of economic contraction. Although the credit economy under a regime of regulations can function to best serve a pluralistic society, the credit economy cannot possibly be blamed because finance capitalists abuse, manipulate and corrupt the credit system in order to score quick and large profits, knowing that the entire house of cards will come down crashing as it did when the Lehman Brothers case erupted to trigger the current global recession.

Despite the deep economic contraction of the market economy from 2007 until the present, neo-liberals continue to defend the exact same system that caused the contraction. Refusing to accept that capital concentration causes vast distortions as it chokes off demand and leaves surpluses that the market cannot absorb, they argue that government is at fault because government has monopoly on the money supply and the fiscal system. This is true, except that government monetary and fiscal policy follows whatever direction finance capital wishes, because the ‘national interest’ is currently identified with finance capitalism – to some degree even in quasi-statist China. Anything that impedes finance capitalism, such as social welfare programs and a progressive tax system, is deemed dangerous to the political economy that has proved self-destructive and ruinous to the general welfare of society.

Added to this era of ebullient neo-liberalism and globalization was the advent of China that helped to provide an immense stimulus to the world economy. That China took a global lead in capitalism, although its own brand of a mixed economy, emboldened the apologists of globalization under the neo-liberal model. What went wrong in the process of all of the global economic growth was the loosening of regulations and relaxed oversight to the degree that banks were dealing with drug international lords and illegal gun dealers, to say nothing of fixing Libor rates and manipulating the bond market through hedge funds/CDS products, buying government debt and concealing it so that creditworthiness is not impacted, etc.; all of these illegal or at the very least highly questionable activities under the watchful eye of the political class that did nothing while receiving funding to run political campaigns, or bribes to supplement personal wealth.

We are now witnessing the convergence of a number of factors accounted for the beginning of the 21st century crisis, which entailed using the public debt as a pretext to transfer income from the middle class and workers to the corporate and finance capital sector, as well as capital transfer from the periphery countries to the core where capitalism has been suffering from its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Given the structure of the political economy from 1980 to 2000, which followed finance capital’s directives as evidenced by fiscal and monetary policies, in essence central banks serving the markets instead of regulating them for the general welfare of society, the contracting cycle was inevitable.
 
b. Recessionary Cycle 2007-present: Public Debt Crisis and Austerity
The manufactured war on terror after the tragedy of 9/11, combined with a new wave of defense spending in the first decade of the 21st century, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost an estimated one trillion dollars, put an enormous strain on the global civilian economy. The crisis of finance capitalism promoted by the ‘below prime’ and other speculative enterprises caused public debt crises not just in the US and core nations (G-7), but sent public debts of many nations into risky territory that allowed for speculators to bid for higher interest rates until it became prohibitive to borrow in the free market.

Austerity policies imposed across Southern and Eastern Europe, something that was unthinkable two decades ago, suggests a heavy handed neo-imperialist direction, given that such policies have been reserved for Third World nations far too vulnerable to resist the power of core nations imposing austerity. In essence this means that the EU is creating a two-tiered economy with the strong and thus hegemonic economies on the northwest tier and the weaker and “dependent” economies in the south and east. Especially amid this crisis, creditor countries demand from weaker EU members lower taxes for direct foreign investment, fewer restrictions on capital movement, liberalization of all vital sectors of the economy, including privatization of public enterprises so that foreign investment penetrates and eventually dominates such sectors.

In return, they extend loans with interest rates higher than most home mortgages, and they saddle the debtor countries with cumulative foreign debt that will keep them perpetually dependent in every respect, from finance and trade to technology and essential pharmaceuticals. In an environment where the strong capitalist countries have been trying to perpetuate their economic, financial, monetary, trade, military, ideological and political hegemony over weaken nations the world is now experiencing a redefinition of the integration models based on some level of reciprocity. Clearly, the regional blocs were and remain in a state of realignment, as the models of integration are changing to reflect a sphere of influence scenario – as in pre-1914 – rather than mutual benefit scenario as globalization and neo-liberalism had promised.

c. Declining incomes and the specter of economic nationalism 
Statistics regarding working class and middle class incomes in most countries, including the G-7, suggest a steady decline for the past three decades or so. For example, in 1978, the US average hourly wage was $8.96 in real terms as compared with $8.57 in 2008, reflecting not just wage stagnation, but real downward socioeconomic mobility. It is estimated that 80% of the total income increase in the last three decades has been going to the top 1% of income earners, while the middle and bottom income groups resorted to increased borrowing at the same time as the public sector that was spending to buttress the corporate welfare system.

As workers and the middle class feels the downward income pressure amid rising personal debt, and as they are not optimistic about their children’s future, the tendency is to become more inclined to support economic nationalism. As time passes, economic nationalism of both the left and right ideological orientations is gaining momentum at the grassroots level. Europeans are losing faith in the common currency – Southern and Eastern Europeans losing faith for different reasons than northwest Europeans. Economic nationalism is also finding expression as a reaction to globalization in Latin America and around the world, in areas where people identify globalization with the corporate structure of the G-7. It is possible that popular support for economic nationalism increases throughout the first half of this century, expressing itself in a variety of political parties, business circles and social movements. This would entail an uphill battle for the continuation of globalization under the neo-liberal model.

12. The Population vs. Resources Debate
If population were to remain frozen for the next two decades, would the world avoid a possible great depression in 2030s; even if population were to drop by one billion, and resources across the board were to rise by 20% would the capitalist economy avoid a major contracting cycle under the model of massive capital concentration, uneven economic development, speculative, parasitic and corrupt banking and corporate practices, a state fiscal structure intended to buttress finance capital?

Finally, if poverty rises during contracting cycles, why has much of the Western World experienced downward social mobility in the past four decades amid a period of economic growth? Even if the state were to do everything that finance and corporate capital requested, short of allowing people to die of starvation in the streets, is it theoretically possible that the market economy can avoid economic contractions in the future, and a major one in the 2030s?

The projections for the rise in the population from the current 7 billion to 11 billion by the middle of the 21st century, and the limited energy, water, and food resources will be a major source of global sociopolitical instability, especially since the exploitation of natural resources rests primarily in the control of Western multinational corporations. Considering that the US has just under 5% of the world’s population but accounts for 25% of the world’s consumption, or 5% more than China and India combined whose population is more than seven times higher than the US. It is troubling, if not the ultimate social injustice, that 12% of the world’s population in North America and Western Europe currently accounts for 60% of the world’s private consumption spending, while one-tird of the world people living in Asia and sub-Sahara Africa account for just 3.2 percent of the world’s private consumption.

Some are optimistic that urbanization in Asia and Africa will result in higher living standards. While it is true that no rural-based economy has reached high income levels, and that rich countries are urban, it is not true that all urban countries are rich. If that were the case, Latin America with a large concentration of its population in urban areas should have been as developed as US and Canada. In the first decade of the 21st century, the average annual  urbanization growth was 2%, while in the Middle East and Africa it was 3%, and in Asia Pacific 2.7%. Concerned about rapid population growth and the lack of resources to meet the rising demand, the UN has warned about a global labor market recession especially in the underdeveloped nations and possible social unrest.
 
UN figures show that 324 cities with a population of over 750,000 has a rise of 20.0% in the last decade, with Africa, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America as leaders. Currently at one billion people, Africa will see a doubling of its population in the next half century, thus accounting for 20% of the world’s population. Multinational corporations are counting on a continued surplus labor force that will keep consumption expanding horizontally, while keeping wages low.

13. The Green Solution – Cyber-Eco-Bourgeois Revolution?
Some have argued that 21stcentury economics means thinking ‘green’, but I have argued that the green movement is not much more than a Trojan Horse of finance capitalism. (Green Movement: Corporate Trojan Horse) To a large degree, not just governments, but a large segment of the population chose to surrender national  sovereignty to finance capital in exchange for the promise of consumerist paradise. Prevalent in developed and semi-developed countries, the cyber-eco-bourgeoisie (1970s-present) are now on the verge of a new revolution that is redefining the foundations of bourgeois liberal democracy. There is a “cyber-eco-bourgeois revolution” currently unfolding; a systemic change not in the mode of production but in thought and way of life that is a continuation of the Enlightenment spirit. Technology and contradictions in the political economy will continue to foster the evolutionary development of this post-web middle class. The cyber-eco-bourgeoisie will become more evident once it emerges from its nascent stage and reconfigures the entire social and institutional structure just as the mercantile bourgeoisie and their successors did in their time. 

Cyberspace-Eco Social Order is inevitable with the evolution of the bourgeoisie, largely because objective conditions will bring it about. The working class or at least a segment will be co-opted into the cyberspace-eco-bourgeois movement in more conservative countries like the US and UK, where institutions are under the firm control of traditional socioeconomic and political elites. In countries with a history of strong working-class consciousness labor will maintain greater socio-political cohesion and may forge alliances with other radical groups–students and cyber-eco bourgeoisie–as a way of retaining political influence. Whether co-opted by or antagonistic to the cyber-eco bourgeoisie, the comprador bourgeoisie inside and outside the formal economy, as well as the working class and its role in society will be influenced, if not largely determined, by the new middle class. Though this is already a reality in the rapidly evolving division of labor for the most advanced countries in high-tech sectors, it will become a reality for the entire world for that is at the core of the both the mode of production and mode of technology.

14. Conclusions

a. Social Discontinuity
Capitalism has been evolving in the past five centuries and it will continue to evolve in the 21st century in order to meet the economic, social and political conditions of societies and the nation-state. Short of grassroots revolutions in the core nations spreading to the periphery, I do not see social discontinuity threatening the capitalist system for the next one hundred years. This is because the system still has enormous room to grow and expand geographically and to continue integrating more segments that are currently on the fringes but have tremendous market-based potential. None of this spells good new for social justice, just as it entails continued uneven social and economic growth on a world scale under very tenuous political and social conditions.

b. War and Revolution
In the distinct absence of political multilateral solutions to conflicts, the advanced capitalist countries will resort to militarist hegemony solutions that will impede economic and social progress. Small wars and uprisings will likely be on the rise during this century. These are always an impediment to economic growth and development, especially for the countries on whose soil the conflict unfolds. Given current trends on the political economy, wars on a small scale as well social unrest not just in developing but also in advanced capitalist countries are a certainty owing to the reality that instant information and communications systems have made people more aware of the social injustice that exists and options before them. In fact, the 21st century may experience much worse social turbulence than the second half of the 20th century. In such social uprisings, and not the kind funded from foreign governments like those in Libya and Syria, may rest the seeds of systemic change and the hope for a better future.

c. Value System Change
For culture to survive and flourish society must have a degree of shared values it is willing to wholeheartedly embrace – spiritual as Hoffman maintains or material as Marxists argue – but also prosperity even if concentrated within a small group of people, hegemonic elites that foment the growth of the education, the arts, sciences and other cultural endeavors. At the same time, hegemonic elites that essentially create and propagate the dominant or mainstream culture are invariably successful in convincing the majority of the population to revere the cultural values and aesthetic achievements emanating from it only if there is not only an idealistic ultimate goal but a practical aesthetic aspect to culture.

While economic determinism has an impact in cultural trends–in everything from elite to popular culture–economic determinism is by no means alone in shaping culture from ancient to modern times. Value system change is inevitable and with it will come systemic change. However, throughout history there are rare examples of the elites that hold power yielding it voluntarily. This means that the 21st century will go through very difficult times as societies struggle to change in order to best serve the majority of the people and not an increasingly small minority.

AUTHOR: Jon Kofas
URL: http://jonkofas.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: jonkofas [at] yahoo.com

Introduction

Assumptions and Dogmatic Viewpoints

The dominance of other disciplines in developing studies has created a shift from heuristic methods of analysis to more hermeneutic methods of analysis. To put in less complicated phrasing: Scholars were primarily immersed in the idea of “uniqueness” and “exotic-ness” in fact juxtaposing phenomena of the developing world in Weberian antimonies while ignoring the empirical. Also problematic was the denial by western and non-western scholars of what I qualify the principle of universality of theory; in other words, theories can be used to underpin the empirical, explain a wide array of phenomena, without avail. Indeed it was easy to deny the universal character of political science theory, by focusing on the contemporary, instead of looking at historical parallels. For example, socialism emerged in a time when the world begged for answers outside the realms of blatant capitalism, a historical period of social movement and political activism, a period of struggle and war. How did these periods affect the developing world, did it kindled parallel patterns or did foster divergent patterns? And if so, what was the reason?

Another characteristic of “development studies” was the imbibing of Marxism..more specific Marxism and its derivatives, Leninism, Maoism and communism became fixed fixture in the works of seminal Latin American, African and Caribbean scholars. Raul Prebish work is an exemplification of how determining leftist ideas were on analysis for underdevelopment and economic stagnation; The work of Andre Gunder Frank (1969), sits at the other end of the spectrum, dogmatic and historical inaccurate. One of the pinnacles of Franks work is his depiction of third world elites, Lumpen Bourgeoisie, people with limited access to international (western networks). The sheer racist character of this depiction, belied by the way western societies embraced non-western literature, music and art during that specific time period. Interesting is that Frank only became challenged by proponents of capitalism, whose rickety position was in fact equally dogmatic and presumptuous. Proponents of capitalism, led by Walt Rostow argued that the restructuring of the Third World could only occur in stages, to let said societies ripen and mature into total industrialization. We all know that such did not happen, in fact, the failure of said theory that development could occur in three stages form the strongest argumentation against capitalism or development aid and assistance for that matter.

But there is another confounding and very important factor that frustrated the emergence of credible and good quality political science research and that is MONEY. The number of grants and fellowships given to scholars to stimulate well-rounded and credible research is below par; papers written by scholars who try to introduce new methods of research are typically rejected, because the intentions are good but there are no examples, no “Eminence Grise” to help guide them carefully but surely onto the slippery-sloped path of the academia. Many non western scholars do not make it, they oftentimes lack metier to make it through and those who make it pay a steep price.

The other side of the coin is that many scholars from Latin America and Africa have a stake in the fostering of old dogmas, ideas of exotic far-away places that are intrinsically unique, far away places that can only be analyzed by traipsing through the doldrums of a complex anthropology. Said scholarship derives their raison d’etre from being unique and one-of-kind, oftentimes combining activism with scholarship.Being unique and one of a kind offers possibilities to receive stipends and scholarship. In the Netherlands, the NWO is specifically keen on spending money on ‘allochtonen’, to stimulate so called minorities to enter the inner sanctum of the academia. The issue is that academia is not an NGO, they expect scholars to perform, they cannot allow mediocrity in their confines, nor can they deal with social and political activism and normativity.

Specifically worrisome is the negative stance by academic disciplines grounded in philosophy and the literature, to study developing societies from a different perspective stems from old-school ideas of colonialism and imperialism. The consistent challenging of Europe and Eurocentrism has not advanced scholarship or scholarly writing, on the contrary. We don’t know how said scholarship views China, the emerging power with a ferocious appetite for minerals and raw materials? Do they think that South-South solidarity will keep Africa, the Caribbean out of harms way? Do they believe that China has the best intentions, that for them the Flying Gees rule will apply, all in the name of South-South solidarity? Will Chinese ideas on human rights and civil liberties become dominant, determining the course of democracy in the developing world these forthcoming decades?

Recent Developments

Since 2007, collaborative efforts initiated by the University Metropolitana Ixtapalpa in Mexico City, have resulted in the revaluation and the rethinking of political science and its place in the developing world. Party Systems theory developed by (Sartori Mair et al, 1990) were used to analyze political systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (Adama 2010). From an earlier date stems the Latino Barometro, a democratic barometer, that foretells how democracies in the region will develop. Africa, the Arab world and Europe developed barometers inspired by the Latino Barometro. Other collaborative efforts by Ixtapalpa are underway, and involve a large study on transnational suffrage, a research specifically valuable for societies such as Suriname, Turkey, Morocco, the Dutch, French and Anglo Antilles, funded by the Mexican government.

These developments are promising, but we are still a long way from home. For instance, being labelled Bourgeois and part of the system, when one tries to introduce new viewpoints and conceptions is not only inaccurate, it also shifts away from that what is important. What do we need to know, and how will we advance scholarship and knowledge of developing and transitional societies, specifically during this era of global transition, a decade of the decline of capitalism and a resurgence of political conservatism and dogmatism in Europe, events that call for the viewpoints of political scientists all over the globe. Where will money for research come from? And how can we change and transform curricula and teaching methods to train and coach new scholars apt to use methods of social science research.

The economic crisis in Europe and its the unprecedented parallels with the peso-crisis of the 1980s and the Baker Plan developed by the Americans have yet to become analyzed and debated. What can Europe learn from Latin America and the Asian Crisis? Will they learn or wallow in a self-imposed isolation brought on by ideas of superiority? Susan Strange and Robert Gilpin (1989) were the first to warn that capitalism was walking on its last legs, the Americans felt that their hegemony would last and last…….

How did Latin America fare and what is the role of the OAS, CARICOM? Why is Chaves not ostracized by his Latin American peers? What is the role of ASEAN in silent revolution in Myanmar, a detente that came as a surprise.

Internet has brought the world closer, and has fostered more parallels than we care to know.

AUTHOR: Natascha Adama
URL: http://natascha23.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: nataliapestova23 [@] yahoo.com

Harry Kitillya, Commissioner General, Tanzania Revenue Authority

African civil societies have been warned not to leave the issue of tax administration in the hands of the governments alone, instead they should form parallel institutions to monitor the same.

This call was made on Monday last week at the Kunduchi Beach Hotel during an International Training in Tax Administration.

The training to representatives of civil societies drew attendants being trainers and other participants from East Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa.

In the workshop that was convened by the Policy Forum NGO. It was learnt that tax collection is turned into a political weapon by many African countries Tanzania inclusive.

It was learnt that the political oligarchy tend to muzzle through tax collection the commercial people who are contrally to their tastes and they tend to give offers in various forms like havens, holidays, and exemptions those in their favour.

But this nasty game which has long term calculated moves to evade tax involves the multinational companies no wonder there are changes of names and ownership in some big companies in order to evade capital gain tax.

For instance in Tanzania there have been such changes with some five stars hotels and mobile phone companies which have been changing names with a short span of time in order to escape capital gain tax.

It was with such changes that the civil society and investigative journalists were counseled to investigate the motives behind such changes.

During his opening remarks the Policy Forum (PF) Coordinator Semkae Kilonzo said that tax administration has caused a lot of problems in African countries.

This is due to evasions which are manipulated through various corrupt means. He delineated that a lot of revenues are left untapped and therefore denying people adequate services.

“If taxes are not collected properly it means some of the Government’s revenues are left outside and hence denying the people income through services which are essential,” he commented.

He added that it was the duty of the civil society to ensure that reports are published and there is transparency on who should to pay what.

Dr William Mgimwa, Minister for Finance Tanzania

“The tax regime is poor in Tanzania and many other African countries because the whole issue has been left to the civil servants hence corruption and capital fight out of Africa have become common phenomenon,” he added.

Jack Ranguma a tax expert from Kenya said that he has conducted a lot of researches just to find that proper collection of taxes can be effective if various community groups are involved in the monitoring programmes.

Ranguma who is former Commissioner of Kenya Revenue Authority is currently working as a consultant with the Kenyan Tax Research Institute.

He mentioned such groups as parliamentary groups, villagers, and distribution functionaries with the aim of ensuring that there is justice in tax administration and that there is enough capacity building in order to create awareness.

“If people are reluctant to pay tax then it means that they do not see the direct benefit of paying taxes to their government and this is a reflection that either tax rates are too high, or the tax authorities are weak,” he commented.

Ranguma said that the main problem with developing countries like Tanzania is the fact that they give priority to the expenditure side than to the income generation one.

He challenged that this trend eventually deprives some important projects like hospitals, schools, infrastructures and hence leading to the vicious cycle of poverty.

He further explained that once there is proper collection of taxes there will be stable economy of a country. He warned that without this stability the rich tend to manipulate the economy much to their advantage.

“I am convinced that Africa, and other poor countries need to discuss with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) more seriously, and constructively for both sides,” he commented.

The tax expert also argued that the failure to monitor social security funds and pensions which are other forms of tax, denies the weaker equity while at the same time these are more beneficial to the high ranking officials.

“Even social security fund is a tax but in a different name, that is why there are a lot of political involvements in these funds. These are meant for re-investment while other employees pay for the retirees,” he added.

Vituz Azeem who presented a paper on the link between tax justice and development said that tax is meant to support development, and if there is poor collection of the same this will be reflected in the national budget.

He warned that many African countries fall prey of corrupt officials in the customs and excises to the extent that big amounts are pocketed to their personal accounts than to the governments.

“Tax administration needs a lot of ethics, if you are working with the tax authority you need to declare your property, also these workers need to report their properties periodically,” he cautioned.

On the issue of tax leakages was Savior Mwambwa who presented a paper on the role of multinationals in tax exemptions, competition, and capital flight.

He said that exemptions are always issued in the pretext of attracting more foreign direct investments, reducing poverty and creation of jobs as well as to allow big growth of the economy.

But in many cases these exemptions are issued through ill motives. However he warned that a good number of such exemptions in various names be it haven, holidays etc, are doing harm to Africa economies than good.

“In many cases tax exemptions is just a creation of a room for corruption, there is a need to create independent body for scrutiny and independent prosecutors who can handle the matters in the court,” he counseled.

Dereje Alemayehu presented a paper on how to mobilize domestic resources in order to avoid dependency. He counseled that citizens must be induced to like payment of tax because in many cases a good number of people do not like payment of such.

“If citizens realize that there is a value for their money they will just be attracted to pay without any kind of harassments or intimidations,” he commented.

Alemayehu mentioned that there are four measures to make people tax willingly; to make state income transparent, to make equity in the provision of services, and minimize the externalization of costs.

Another method is to give voice to the citizenry in regard to public expenditures, on how incomes are generated and spent.

On his side Michael Otieno from the Kenya’s National Taxpayers Association (NTA) said that there is a need for the civil society to institutionalize mechanisms of verifying how tax is collected and spent in a country.

He counseled that through civil society advocacy people must understand that paying tax is amoral obligation and duty which has benefit to their lives.

AUTHOR: Elias Mhegera
URL: http://mhegeraelias.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: mhegeraelias [at] yahoo.com

Mamata Banerjee

The mercurial West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is once again in spotlight for her eccentricities, when she ordered the arrest of a man who asked her a question of farmer’s welfare in her public meeting.

Ms Banerjee addressed a public meeting at Belpahari in the once Maoist-dominated district of West Midnapore. After her speech, she asked the public, as she often does, if they had any questions for her.

That’s when Shiladitya Chowdhury, a farmer in his 40s, said, “What are you doing for farmers? Farmers are dying because they have no money. Empty promises are not enough.”

Surprised by the farmer’s question, Ms Banerjee reacted angrily and said the man must be a Maoist. The police immediately nabbed Chowdhry who was let off after initial questioning. Later Chowdhry was arrested again from his home on charges of trying to disrupt the Chief Minister’s meeting.

Mamata Banerjee’s dictatorial rule has attracted ire from several quarters. The Press Council of India chief Markendey Katju has described West Bengal Chief Minister as intolerant and whimsical.

Katju said the arrest of Siladitya Chowdhury, amounted to “blatant misuse” of state machinery and “flagrant violation” of constitutional and human rights.

Justice Katju criticized Mamata Banerjee’s action saying, “it was most undemocratic to say the least.” He went on to add that the Trinamool Congress chief is totally undeserving to be a political leader in a democratic country like India since she has no respect for constitutional and civil rights of citizens and is totally dictatorial, intolerant, and whimsical in her behavior.”

The former Supreme Court judge cautioned the administrative and police authorities against taking “illegal orders”, warning that they could suffer the same fate as Nazi criminals did for acting on Hitler’s directions.

“At the Nuremburg Trials the Nazi war criminals took the plea that orders were orders and they were only carrying out the orders of Hitler, their superior, but this plea was rejected and they were hanged. The West Bengal officials should take a lesson from the Nuremburg verdict if they do not wish to suffer a similar fate,” he said.

Jistice Katju said the Chief Minister has behaved in a high handed and dictatorial manner earlier too. “On May 19, she had branded a college student Taniya Bharadwaj during a TV programme as a Maoist, merely because she questioned about what she was doing about the security of women after the Park Street rape of an Anglo-Indian woman. She had also got one Jadavpur University Professor arrested for drawing a cartoon of her”, Katju said.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Nilotpal Basu took potshots at the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) over the farmer’s arrest. “There is very little difference today between intolerance and authoritarianism,” said Nilotpal Basu who described the step as reflective of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s dictatorial attitude.

The BJP also slammed Ms Banerjee for her action. The party said politicians should learn to answer such questions at public meetings.

The farmers in West Bengal like elsewhere in the country are a pathetic lot. They at the receiving end especially the marginal farmers because input costs have gone up for agricultural production and they do not get the price of the agricultural products, which they produce. The draught situation in the country has further aggravated their problems.

In such backdrop the farmer’s questions to its elected representative about solving their problem was not undemocratic. On the contrary his arrest doing so was an undemocratic act.

Is Mamata Banerjee driving the peasants of West Bengal to situation in late sixties, when the serious agrarian crisis was silenced by the then Congress regime, through the barrel of the gun? It was that fodder that gave gist to the CPI (M) to rule West Bengal for 35 years.

The arbitrary arrest of the farmer is preparing similar situation. The euphoria on which Mamata Banrjee rode to power is fast getting eroded. People are coming to terms with Trinamool Chief’s eccentricities. If similar highhandedness continues to rule the roost, it’s almost certain that West Bengal is again going into the laps of the opposition for an uncertain period of time.

AUTHOR: Mujtaba Syed
URL: http://mujtabas-musings.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: syedalimujtaba [at] yahoo.com

He proceeded to the University of Ghana, where he was awarded Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science in Economics in 1974 and 1980. He was also a lecturer at the Anambra State College of Education, Awka Anambra State, Nigeria.

Mr. Amissah Arthur’s first appointment was at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), where he was a research assistant from 1974 to 1975. He was a PNDC Deputy Secretary for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and continued to work in the same capacity during the first term of the Rawlings-led NDC Government.

As PNDC Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (February 1986 to March 1993), he was a member of the Economic Management Team that designed and implemented the Economic Recovery Programme.

He had direct responsibility for the preparation of the annual Public Investment Programme, the management of the national budget as well as management of bilateral and multilateral assistance to the country.

After retiring from public office in 1997, Mr. Amissah-Arthur worked on a number of consultancy assignments: As Senior Economist for the Sigma One Corporation, Ghana from 1998 to 2000 he helped design and implement the “Ghana Policy Dialogue Project”, a USAID-funded project that provided advisory services to the Government of Ghana and the “Trade and Investment Reform Project”, which aimed to enhance Ghana’s export competitiveness.

In 2001 and 2002, he was hired on an assignment on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. He was co-author of a review of Ghana’s public financial management system, titled: “Guidance Note: Financial Integration into Relevant Ghanaian Structures” a report which has been used as a training manual for new employees into the Finance Ministry.

He was among the team of technocrats who managed Ghana’s structural adjustment programme since 1980 that helped in reviving the collapsing Ghanaian economy.

His hard work and achievement was realized by the late president Mills, hence his appointment as Governor of the Bank of Ghana on the 1st of October 2009 to replace Dr Paul Acquah who served eight years as Governor.

Prior to his appointment as Governor of Ghana’s Central Bank, he worked as a private consultant/economist.

As Consultant for the World Bank, he trained the staff of The Department of State for Agriculture, Republic of The Gambia in 1997 in initiating a review of the World Bank-funded Medium-term Expenditure Programme.

He was the consultant at all stages of the Netherlands’ Government- funded Technical/Vocational Education project for Ghana’s Ministry of Education in association with TNW Export BV of Waalwijk, Netherlands).

Mr. Amissah-Arthur has served on a number of Boards and Committees including the Boards of the Bank of Ghana, Ghana Commercial Bank, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Ghana National Procurement Agency, Ghana Supply Commission, and the Academic Board and Finance Committee of the University of Ghana.

The Vice President is married with two children.

AUTHOR: Shout Africa
URL: http://www.shout-africa.com
E-MAIL: news [at] shout-africa.com