Africa has been rated as the world’s richest continent in natural resources yet, poorest and corrupt, in the recent world economic forum held at Nigeria.
It is five times richer in resources than America, four times richer than Australia and three than Asia.
Africa is the world’s second- largest and second-most populous continent at about 330.3 kilometer square including adjacent islands, with about eight percent of world’s natural gas reserves, 45% of countries on the continent have oil. It has 57 % of the world’s cobalt, 47 % of diamond, 49 % manganese, 31% of its phosphate and 21% of its gold.
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It also got abundant of hectors of land of which many countries in the world lease for agricultural purposes.
Statistics shown at the world economic forum has revealed that, every African country within a month waste one billion dollars through corruption.
From 2014-2016, Africa waste $6.1 trillion through corruption in the name of economic building, whiles same time America used $4.1 trillion dollars for economic expansion and Australia $1.1 trillion for same purpose.
It was also revealed that, Ivory Coast wasted $432 million dollars just for road visibility studies whereas South Africa also used $1.2 billion dollars to identifying people who were groomed for contesting Member of Parliament.
The country Mali which is known to be one of the African countries that produces larger amount of onions has used $200 million dollars for onion capacity building conference within the period of five hours, the list continues on and on.
To add up to, in Ghana during the era of the past government, it was noted that, $4.4 billion dollars was used for a supposedly constructed Volta corridor roads which appeared not to be so.
Transparency International annual reports says Africa is the most corrupt continent in the world, with Somalia topping the list. The top ten most corrupted African countries include, Somalia as the first, followed by Sudan, Chad, Burundi, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, Mauritius and Botswana.
With all the wealth Africa has, if managed well by our leaders, we need not to go and borrow from the so called developed countries, Africa should have been the richest countries and people but it’s rather be the direct opposite. It is not too late, we can begin now.
Africa can begin by strengthen our governance, shifting from autocratic dictatorships to democratic regimes, which is already being practice in Ghana, and to take legal precautions to end corruption.
By: Diana Nartey
