So I am on the bus engrossed in Dambisa
Moyo's "Winner Take All" when the guy seated next to me takes a keen
interest in the book. Just as I flip to the next page, I hear him grunt
disapproval to indicate that he had not finished reading that part. So I sigh
impatiently and give him the look. You know the one that says, "if you
really want this book so bad, why don't you get yourself a copy?".
"Is it a novel?" he asks me to
which I shake my head in the negative.
"Its a story book...?" he persists. Forced to answer him, I explain
that it is a book that examines China's role in the rush for global commodities
such as minerals, oil and land. I further tell him that the book claims China
is miles ahead in terms of aggressively securing these commodities to satisfy
the demand for its huge population.
At this point he yanks the book from my hands, clearly ignoring the look in my
eye. He tilts in order to have a good look at the author and title.
"Dambisa", he excitedly says, "that girl is talented. Did you
know she is also a musician? She did a song with Petersen some time back".
This was an encounter my friend Keith
Hamundyoli Hamusute had on a public bus on his many travels across the vast
land of Zambia. Since the time Keith shared his experience, I have talked to a
lot of people that can’t distinguish between Dambisa Moyo and Dambisa the
Musician. Now, I won’t assume everyone is well vested and well equipped with
information on both Dambisa’s. Depending on one’s interests, the most likely
situation is that you may know one and not the other.
Well, Dr. Dambisa Moyo is an international economist who writes on the
macroeconomy and global affairs, who was born in Zambia while the latter is a
popular musician who churns out ‘Zambian urban afro reggae dance hall’
music. I should be excused if that is not the correct genre of music which
she does. I once read an article in the post newspaper that described her music
as boostele, not that I always agreed with the particular writer but he had
some interesting points of note.
Having given an ephemeral introduction of both Dambisas, the point I was trying
to drive at is that, most people I have interacted with essentially know or
have heard of Dambisa the musician only. I do not have an answer as to why? But
I know that a lot of people in this generation do not do a lot of reading, but
rather spend a lot of time in front of their television sets. You and I know
that it is not every day, that writers’ faces come on TV but musicians do this
every day. I am a big victim of television myself. At times I have even found myself
watching “useless” TV shows like the famed reality show big brother. But
Dambisa moyo is more than just a writer, she is an internationally acclaimed
economist who dares trudge ground that most economists don’t want to go, and
this was evident in her book ‘dead aid’. She may be an
internationally acclaimed economist, but around my side of the world, Dambisa
the musician is more popular. So who is Dambisa the musician?
DAMBISA is all she is known as. In my
quest to know her more, I turned to google and typed “Dambisa” but all I got
was information on Dambisa Moyo. But I was not prepared to hit a dead end here.
I finally ‘hit the Jackpot’, when
someone gave me an extract of Dambisa’s interview in the Zambia daily mail. It
was a torn piece with no much information. Nevertheless, it had enough for me
to start from, and trust me every day you learn something new and I did learn
quite a lot about our sexy musician.
 |
| Dambisa Michelle Lunda |
It turns out that, as far back as Primary school, Dambisa's love for
singing was evident. Whenever she could she was always miming to some of the
music of late Michael Jackson.
With music ever blaring in their house, Dambisa credits her father for
according her an opportunity to ‘sing’ with a microphone, which he acquired for
her.
Besides miming and sometimes bopping to the Wacko Jacko moves, Dambisa recalls
that she was also influenced with their house’s huge collection of music, which
included those of P K Chishala, while Tina Turner’s rock music turned her upside
down.
Dambisa
tasted her real studio buzz at the Sound Check Studios around 1997, when the
songbird dared the likes of Red Linso and Winston Moyo, who were recording at
the same studio. “I recorded my first
single titled Bwela while I was still in school at International School of
Lusaka although the time I was spending at the studio had no blessings from
dad,” revealed Dambisa, a fan of Maureen Lupo Lilanda and Jane Osborne’s
music. Upon completing her high school, Dambisa attempted a course in Electrical
Engineering at High-Tech Institute, where she also studied Computer Science
between 2003 and 2006. “I also had an
opportunity to work for Sunny Care in 2006 before going back into full-time
music,” said the third born in a family of eight, who was born Dambisa
Michelle Lunda.
Apart
from the dance song of Bwela,
Dambisa named the other songs as Siuliko,
Okamiwa and Chuumba, while her touchy song Nalila
was written as a moving dedication to her father after he passed on in 2001
on September 21. Her ragga-sauced song of Kaduka
Chain is so far her only song to be nominated for any award.
“I had
a brief stint with No Parking band, but I guess it was the exposure I received
with Crossroads Music that gave me the urge to record my music,” said the
former Bread of Life church praise team member, who had an opportunity to sing
alongside late Lily T and Celtel Star Search finalist, Viola. The Crossroads
Music bash in Tanzania opened new avenues for the young diva, making her a
regular feature during the annual Women in Music and the International Women’s
Day gigs. (Extracts from dailymail)
Before the day I was handed the
newspaper extract all I knew was that she once played for ‘No Parking Band’, a
band that was the center of musical entertainment at Chrisma hotel in Lusaka. I
am not sure if the No parking band still plays there but I can confirm that my
wife & I have driven to Chrisma on two occasions in search of some live
musical entertainment only to find the place quite.
Coming back to the issue of confusing
the two Dambisas, it is not only in public buses where they are confused. I
once read a comment from a blogger on a certain news site with the link below; “She is an
Economist? I thought she is a singer/musician who performs at Chrisma Hotel
with the No Parking Band and at Kalahari Guest House with Gibson and band. She
recently got engaged to that guy from Multichoice. She looks a bit different in
this picture though” http://www.zambianwatchdog.com/dambisa-moyo-says-investors-scared-to-invest-in-zambia-currently/comment-page-1/
Enough said about Dambisa
Michelle Lunda. Having earlier briefly introduced Dr. Dambisa Moyo, I will add
that She is best known as the author of the New York Times bestsellers Dead
Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a
Better Way for Africa and How the West Was Lost:
Fifty Years of Economic Folly and the Stark Choices Ahead.
Her third book, Winner Take
All: China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for the World,
was published in June 2012, and also received critical acclaim.
 |
| Dr. Dambisa Moyo |
In 2009, Dambisa was named by TIME
Magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and
to the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Forum. Her writing regularly
appears in economic and finance-related publications such as the Financial
Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Dambisa is a contributing editor to
CNBC, the business and finance news network. She is a patron of Absolute Return
for Kids (ARK), a hedge-fund supported children’s charity. She completed a PhD
in economics at Oxford University and holds a Masters degree from Harvard
University. She completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry and an MBA in
finance at American University in Washington, D.C. http://www.dambisamoyo.com/biography/
In as much as I have said earlier that I
knew more about Dr. Moyo than Dambisa the musician, I have only read one of her
three books, ‘Dead aid’, which I got at a great fortune. I wonder why books
in this part of the world are so expensive. I got to the book shop and had to
debate on buying either ‘Dead Aid’ or ‘capitalist niggar’ as the
money I had on me could only buy one. I
eventually settled for dead aid because Dr Moyo is closer
to home in comparison to Dr Chika Onyeani… unless of course if I was Nigerian.
I chose the former’s book entirely on patronage to my country and I did not
regret the choice once I opened the first page of the book. Don’t get me wrong
though, Dr Chika Onyeani’s book is a master class. It excels as an explosive
and jarring censure of the Black Race. I am really awed at how the author is
not afraid to use the most hated word, 'NIGGAR' as a title of his book. Dr
Onyeani is quoted by various sources as saying, "It is not what you call me, but what I answer to, that matters
most." Merriam Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, ranks the word ‘Nigger’ as "perhaps
the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English.....it is otherwise
a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry."
But could my choice of ‘dead
aid’ be a yardstick for my level of patriotism? I also wonder which
country Dambisa Moyo pays her allegiance to. I know for sure that prof Clive
Chirwa had a British passport!
Having read Dead Aid, I find it as a
thought provoking piece of economics literature. In Dead Aid Dambisa argues that development assistance is
not merely a waste of money, but that it is the cause of Africa's unrelenting
poverty. She conveys to the facade, the fact that billions of dollars have
come into Africa in the form of aid in the same period figures of poverty in
the continent have sky rocketed. Why has so much aid not made any difference?
Instead of obsessing over more aid, she
proposes that, Africa should be calling for fairer trade and stepping-up
efforts to attract Chinese investment. Yes more Chinese investment. Is it not
the same Chinese who are said to have terrible working conditions for their
workers at their factories across Africa? Dead aid is really one thought
provoking book.
Dambisa Moyo is not the first economist
to question aid though, is she? She is not. In my view, her book gets a lot of
attention precisely because she claims that African countries (which she is a
native of) are poor because of the same aid. In Ms Moyo's words, 'Aid has been, and continues to be, an
unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of
the developing world.' In short, it is (as Karl Kraus said of Freudianism)
“the disease of which it pretends to be
the cure”.
Ms Moyo has reignited the debate on aid
throughout the world. She has received a lot of attacks from people in all
circles of life. Microsoft founder Bill Gates became the latest to attack her
stance on aid. He even went further than attacking just her stance but her
persona as well, by suggesting that people like her are promoting evil. Dr.Moyo
did not waste any time but put up a statement on her website and within a space
of a few minutes, her face book profile was also updated with the same
statement. (http://www.dambisamoyo.com/?post=dr-dambisa-moyo-responds-to-bill-gates-personal-attacks)
What is my take on this ensuing feud between two highly
respected opinion leaders in the world?
They are two people who both want to change the world, albeit
in different ways. One is an innovative rich genius and wants to do it with his
money the other is a resourceful genius and wants to do it with a visionary philosophy.
In the end they both mean well. However, I do not want to dwell on the
bickering as that was a wrong approach that they took. I would have loved for
them to engage in debate each defending their position on aid to Africa and not
the route of personal attacks.
In her response to Mr. Gates, Dambisa says and I quote
only a her third paragraph, “I find it
disappointing that Mr. Gates would not only conflate my arguments about
structural aid with those about emergency or NGO aid, but also that he would
then use this gross misrepresentation of my work to publicly attack my
knowledge, background, and value system.”
Without seeking to review Dead aid, Dambisa’s book
is centered on the harmful effects aid has on Africa. The kind of aid she is
critiquing is official aid (from rich country governments and international
organizations) directed to poor country governments. (Her book does not address
private international philanthropy or humanitarian aid like disaster relief.)
The kind of aid Mr Gates provides to Africa does not really come under attack
from Dr. Moyo. Like my friend Libanga Ochola, put it, “as much as most people would want to condemn Gate's comments, the truth
is we should be grateful to this man's efforts through the foundation (Bill
& Melinda Gates).If it were not there, I dont know how Africa would be
coping regarding ART, he's a true
philanthropist”.
The Bill and Melinda gates foundation (co-chaired by Bill
Gates & Wife Melinda) has been very active in the health sector of poor
African countries like Zambia. High-ranking delegation from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, including William H. Gates, Sr., Mimi Gates, David
Brandling-Bennett, Andy Voytko, Heather Flodstrom, Gabrielle Fitzgerald, and
Todd Dennett, have all visited Zambia to learn firsthand about malaria and
tuberculosis in Africa. These delegations have meetings meet with government
officials to learn how the country is addressing the diseases; as well as
meeting a range of malaria control partners. The question though is, where does
this sought of philanthropy aid end and when does official government to
government aid begin?
Malaria No More is a programme determined to end malaria
deaths in Africa by 2015. Mr Gates, through the foundation he chairs has been
one of the biggest donors to this programme which has been among other things,
distributing insecticide treated bed nets. According to Reports from the
Zambian Ministry of Health in 2011, statistics showed that deaths from malaria
had decreased by over 50%.
Before
embarking on a trip to Zambia Bill Gates was quoted as saying; “I’ll be looking at malaria intervention in
Zambia, because that’s where we supported the first major efforts to distribute
bed nets and get people to use them. After we began this work, the U.S. started
the President’s Malaria Initiative, which essentially expanded what we were
doing in Zambia and replicated the program in other countries.”
Africa's future does not depend on aid. It
depends on its people and its governments. Yet aid can make a difference. Aid
has made a difference. I do not think this is the kind of aid Dr Moyo classes
as ‘dead aid’.
However,
structural aid which Dambisa brands dead aid, has either not been administered
the right way or by the right people. It is common for Donors to have more
influence over who forms government in many African countries than the citizens
of those countries. It is also common for donors to structure how that aid will
be administered instead of letting the locals find their own solutions to their
problems. Donors will even design governance policy and governance structures
for aid recipient countries. These policy papers authored in Washington or
Brussels rarely have the input of the locals who may be better placed to understand
problems at hand.
It is thus not
surprising that well-respected academic studies cited in Dead Aid show that official
foreign aid to such governments fails to raise economic growth. The studies
suggest also that such aid fuels corruption, makes democracy less likely,
reduces local savings, causes inflation, and makes African exports
uncompetitive. (Rajan Raghuram and Arvind
Subramanian, 2008, Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really
Show? Review of Economics and Statistics, November 2008, Vol. 90, No. 4:
643–665)
Structural adjustment programs which made aid
conditional on governments signing up for damaging experiments in 'big-bang'
market liberalization is one such example. Donors pushed the aid recipient
countries to embark on hasty but wholesale economic reform that ended up eating
at the core of the economies. Zambia was one of the worst affected countries,
with the agricultural sector left devastated by a botched liberalization of
food marketing. Agricultural cooperatives became run down and food security was
left in the hands of foreign owned multi-national companies whose main and only
motive was profit. The result was that Zambia became a dumping ground for
imports of all sorts of food products imported since her own production
capacity was damaged. How was the economy of Zambia expected to grow when
production had been cut down and the country depended on imports?
How were we coerced to take radical wholesale
liberalization? Detroit is a protected car industry and economy, Africa is
forced to open up it’s infant markets and economy. Such ‘extremist ideas’ were
intellectually and realistically flawed. Such conditions attached to aid were
busy strangling the very economies where aid was being poured into.
However, what would have happened without aid is
obviously very hard to determine. Wouldn't it be much better for the developed
nations to give aid by bringing about fairer trade? A kind of Trade that ‘creates trading partnership,
based on dialogue, transparency and respect. That seeks greater equity in
international trade, contributing to sustainable development by offering better
trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and
workers in the poor countries.’
As far back as 1965, Africans like Kwame Nkrumah were questioning aid and its effectiveness in Africa. Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism; Kwame Nkrumah pronounces, “Still
another neo-colonialist trap on the economic front has come to be known as
‘multilateral aid’ through international organisations: the International
Monetary Fund, the Inter-national Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(known as the World Bank), the International Finance Corporation and the
International Development Association are examples, all, significantly, having
U.S. capital as their major backing. These agencies have the habit of forcing
would-be borrowers to submit to various offensive conditions, such as supplying
information about their economies, submitting their policy and plans to review
by the World Bank and accepting agency supervision of their use of loans. As
for the alleged development, between 1960 and mid-1963 the International
Development Association promised a total of $500 million to applicants, out of
which only $70 million were actually received.
It seems what we have is a situation where ‘the more things change, the more they
remain the same’. As long as Africa and the rest of the developing world
continue on this path of ‘BIG BROTHER’ type of relations and trade with the
developed world, we will never get to the ‘promised land’. What is required is
mutually beneficial relations that promote fair trade and in some instances
growth incentives for developing nations.
Dambisa Moyo has raised pertinent questions that to date,
still do not have answers. The world is not moving to remedy the flaws that lie
in aid. Aid per se is not the problem we face as Africa; it is a solution that
if properly administered would be able to change our continent towards a path
of economic growth and poverty alleviation. We would be able to see aid being
effective.
Donors would be better served if they adopt at least the
first two principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
1. Emphasize
the need to allow recipient countries to define their own development priorities
and programs while donors assist in helping recipient countries achieve those priorities.
This is a clear departure from the traditional top-down aid approach we have
experienced.
2. Donors
also need to align their aid principles with recipients so to ensure that aid
does not result in market distortions. This would be to ensure that aid money
meant for education does not go into creating separate structures of education
but integrating into the existing structures.
Aid effectiveness is the impact that aid has in reducing
poverty and inequality, increasing growth, building capacity, and accelerating
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals set by the international
community. Aid recipient nations also have a role to play in improving aid effectiveness
by passing and implementing important anti-corruption reforms. Fears about
corruption and other forms of government abuse remain critical sources of
concern for donor countries and their respective agencies. Donor worries over
government corruption in African countries have led to the proliferation of
nongovernmental organizations.
These NGOs have also not helped in being accountable on
aid funds. Former Minister of Community and Social welfare in Zambia,
Marina Nsingo, once threatened to deregister the non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) which have "mushroomed", many purporting to work for poverty
alleviation and with AIDS-related issues.
"People have gotten into the habit of
hatching NGOs everywhere, saying they are doing poverty alleviation, HIV/AIDS.
But what have they done? Or what are they doing? Because the problems do not
seem to be going away," said Nsingo.
Former Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa was quoted by the
Pan African News Agency as saying: "Donors
are more willing to deal with the civil society, but the money is being spent
elsewhere. If a government has misused resources, it will be subjected to the
process of accountability, but individual organisations cannot be audited by
the auditor-general."
Not all aid
is dead. But we need to reform our aid administration to ensure effective
results. I would like to conclude by querying how the attacks on Dambisa Moyo
by Bill Gates did not make any frontpage headlines in Zambia. Are we a country
that is quick to pick on a feud between Mampi and Kay figo? This could explain
the popularity of Dambisa Michelle Lunda over Dr Dambisa Moyo! Or as a
country we love the never ending hostility between Hakainde Hichilema and
Michael Sata? Is this what the Zambian populace
is eager to listen to or read about in the papers! The press has a lot of
influence on public opinion and culture; hence they could do more in highlighting
issues of aid in order to make a contribution to the effectiveness on aid.
There are a lot of issues the media can highlight to bring about positive
debate in the country. Topics that are more progressive than the constant
bickering of politicians.
Below is an
extract of Dambisa moyo statement on Bill Gates’ attacks on her and the
discussions I had with friends concerning the matter.
Thursday,
May 30th, 2013
Dr.
Dambisa Moyo responds to Bill Gates’ personal attacks
On May
28th, 2013 during a Q&A session at the University
of New South Wales, Bill Gates, co-Founder of Microsoft and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, made some shocking and inappropriate ad-hominem
attacks against me and my book Dead Aid.
I find it disappointing that Mr. Gates would
not only conflate my arguments about structural aid with those about emergency
or NGO aid, but also that he would then use this gross misrepresentation of my
work to publicly attack my knowledge, background, and value system.
I would like to take this opportunity to
address both of Mr. Gates’ claims here:
1. I wrote Dead Aid to contribute to a useful debate on
why, over many decades, multi billions of dollars of aid has consistently
failed to deliver sustainable economic growth and meaningfully reduce poverty.
I also sought to explicitly explain how decades of government to government aid
actually undermined economic growth and contributed to worsening living
conditions across Africa. More than this, I clearly detailed better ways for
African leaders, and governments across the world, to finance economic
development. I have been under the impression that Mr. Gates and I want the
same thing – for the livelihood of Africans to be meaningfully improved in a
sustainable way. Thus, I have always thought there is significant scope for a
mature debate about the efficacy and limitations of aid. To say that my book
“promotes evil” or to allude to my corrupt value system is both inappropriate
and disrespectful.
2. Mr. Gates’ claim that I “didn’t know much
about aid and what it was doing” is also unfortunate. I have dedicated many
years to economic study up to the PhD level, to analyze and understand the
inherent weaknesses of aid, and why aid policies have consistently failed to
deliver on economic growth and poverty alleviation. To this, I add my
experience working as a consultant at the World Bank, and being born and raised
in Zambia, one of the poorest aid-recipients in the world. This first-hand
knowledge and experience has highlighted for me the legacy of failures of aid,
and provided me with a unique understanding of not only the failures of the aid
system but also of the tools for what could bring African economic success.
To
cast aside the arguments I raised in Dead Aid at a time when we have witnessed the
transformative economic success of countries like China, Brazil and India,
belittles my experiences, and those of hundreds of millions of Africans, and
others around the world who suffer the consequences of the aid system every
day.
In conclusion, I am disappointed that Mr.
Gates would choose the route of personal attacks rather than a logical counter
argument about the role of aid in modern Africa. Such attacks add no value in
the important discussions on the challenges the world faces to deliver economic
growth, eradicate poverty, combat disease, and reduce income inequality, to
name a few.
As I have always maintained, I respect the
views of others and am open to having logical and meaningful debates with the
ultimate goal of finding sustainable solutions to Africa’s economic problems.
Thank you,
Dr. Dambisa Moyo
Top of Form
Libanga Ochola Hey Patrice Nambayo Aongola as much as most people would
want to condemn Gate's comments the truth is we should be grateful to this
man's efforts through the foundation (Melinda n gates) as if it were not there
dnt know how africa would be coping regarding ART he's a true philanthropist now
back at 1 but I had always believed he was the richest even when he spent a few
years at 3 I actually believe his charity works get into his way Trust me its
the reason why I support Microsoft products even if they aint world class but
at the back of my mind i kno this man is the reason bhind most of my
sisters/bros hopes for a beta tomorrow His point might have been to inform Dr
Moyo that not all aid has strings attached and un4tunately emotion cudv taken
precedence but I urge you to look at this man's efforts in the well being of
vulnerable societies like sub Saharan africa nd you may think he might have an
underlining point He's one of those unsung heroes
- Akatama Muteto Libanga Ocholabanga,he
does have a point but he didnt read her book,because if he had read her book he
would have understood what she was trying to say. and it is true,aid is good
but not all aid.
- Libanga Ochola One of those Off th cuff
comments nd i feel moyo shidv just ignored him
- Akatama Muteto but then again she had to
defend herself to protect her reputation,because when Bill Gates talks the
world listens
- Libanga Ochola Lol! Theyv stopped listening
for a while as everybody thinks Microsoft nd him are gone till Nov nyway most
tymz stuf dies naturally when u don't counter
- Patrice Nambayo Aongola She had to definitely talk
because before her book "dead aid", she was just another economist
who passed through Harvard and nothing more to it. But the issues she raised in
dead aid touched a lot of sensitive areas that in some instances had been noted
by many people before but chose to keep quite because at the end of the day
Africa needs the aid. Dead aid gave her the international acclaim and the
moment a figure like Mr.Gates attacked her "philosophy" or is it
school of thought, she had to respond in order to stay in "business"
or within the radar of accomplished economists. Her mistake though was to go
personal. She should have kept it at a point of defending her philosophy.
- Akatama Muteto i skim she is trying to make a
big deal out of it so that her book starts selling again. but i have enough
respect for her not just because she is zedian but because she was brave enough
to speak ,question and answer what ever one asks themselves deep in side
concerning aid
- Patrice Nambayo Aongola DEAD AID is Dambisa Moyo. It
gave her the spring board and everything else she does like writing quarterly
columns for all these renowned magazines is all around her dead aid. I haven't
read the other two books but I noticed her newest one "Winner Take All:
China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for the World", also received
critical acclaim. One of my mates Keith spoke highly of the book in
one of his posts. Dead aid to Dambisa is like what Terminator is for Anold
Swarzszenegar.
- Libanga Ochola Well I must confess haven't
bothered to even scheme through it as I felt the yarn is a chestnut but big ups
2 her 4 standing up as most of this knowledge is hardly ever officially
published Winner takes all might as well be under dead aids genre we all kinda
know what China's up2 nd how the west are jealous of this new found 'partner'
for africa all in all she's right politically correct to put it out there lest
sum1 sitting in some air conditioned office in a western world do just that
- Akatama Muteto if you can make money from
telling people what is happening thats great,it is easier than using your
imagination and writing some fiction book. the more controversy your book
brings the better,more money for you. but at the end of the day,politicians
wont read t and the few whomight will do nothing about it. but atleast you get
paid
- Libanga Ochola On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1
representing < 5% readership nd 10% representing 95% readership of her books
in zed how would u rate this book interms of its intended 'target population'?
- Akatama Muteto you see economists have run
out of ideas and her book will just add on to books for uni students to read
and do research on
- Libanga Ochola Yah!! Like i watched a movie
profiling a west african student in France nd one of the comments of a guy he
worked with as a parttime security guard was " Africans! U are always good
at memorising stuff but....."
- Patrice Nambayo Aongola "I see the aid conspiracy
in different ways, not less than a machine to make more money for those same so
called billionaires like Gates. Poverty in terms of diseases is being used as a
raw material to make money for wealth pharmaceuticals like GAVI and other
multinationals who hide behind the humanitarian cause.Never seen any one impoverished man fattening his family on handouts from good
Samaritans. In Zambia no one would want to give such a man the means to become
self-reliant so that they continue using his misery for their own ego. If it is
a man who comes around with a poking stick to pick up papers at a lawn of a
rich man, no one would want to buy the man a lawn mower and bristle brooms so
that he starts charging for the service. Instead they want this man to beg and
use him for less the price worth his importance to sanitary health. In short
all those who want handouts to continue, enjoy seeing the enslaved side of a
human being."
- Akatama Muteto i agree with him. i have no
problem with giving my workers money to buy mealie meal when they run out or to
go to the hospital,but i will not give them money to start a business. i can
give them money to buy a tv or a radio but not to start a business
- Libanga Ochola I understand Patrice Nambayo Aongola I feel emotions should always
be dealt with in everything we decide as much as I also hate it when I see
someone's ego being satisfied by 'giving back' to humanity fact is its human
nature even at our own level we get to see 'well wishers' from time to time but
question is how we benefit from that ego mean if our benefits outstrip that
persons ego why worry about it? Its one of those sayings " In life we
hardly get what we want but merely what we negotiate for"
- Patrice Nambayo Aongola It’s easy to understand where
Mr. Gates is coming from, he is emotionally attached to his aid, he wants to
change the world with it, and feels insulted when people like Dr. Moyo
discredit and vilify it, (which she does in her book). Even more in one of her
chapters she argues that maybe Africa needs benevolent dictators, it could be
to this that Mr. Gates (a benevolent dictator himself in his industry but one
who hates political dictators) is so incensed with Dambisa enough to call her
as "promoting evil". However Mr. Gates could rest easy as Dr. Moyo in
her own book, does later on debunk her own philosophy of a benevolent dictator
by highlighting their rarity on the continent.In the end these are two people who both want to change the world one is a Rich
genius and wants to do it with his money the other is a genius and wants to do
with her philosophy. In the end they both mean well.
- Libanga Ochola Guess so Patrice but my
feeling is usually to gauge these issues in a cost/benefit i.e. for the common
good but I reckon its a clash of ethical positions
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