Page 117 - Afrika Must Unite

102 AFRICA MUST UNITE

make a profit, has nothing to do with aid. This does not mean that
a developing country may not find it advantageous to make a
contract with a foreign company for the setting up of, say, a
factory or an industry.
Real aid is something quite different. It consists of direct gifts
or loans that are given on favourable terms and without strings
attached.
In other words, the problem is how to obtain capital-invest-
ment and still keep it under sufficient control to prevent undue
exploitation; and how to preserve integrity and sovereignty
without crippling economic or political ties to any country,
bloc or system.
We have had enough of European monopoly domination of
our economy. We have emancipated ourselves politically, and
we have now to shake off the economic monopoly that was the
objective of foreign political control. This is the crux of our
economic policy, and the essential heart of our endeavours. For
unless we attain economic freedom, our struggle for independ­
ence will have been in vain, and our plans for social and cultural
advancement frustrated. Hence we are extremely vigilant in
scenting out the subtle and insidious infiltrations of neo­
colonialism and the sabotage of foreigners enjoying our hospi­
tality and the privilege of building economic enterprises in our
midst. In furtherance of our goal of unshackling ourselves
from foreign economic domination, we are creating agencies
which will assist in breaking through this alien monopoly and
stimulate capital accumulation for re-employment in wider
development.
A country’s capital is, of course, also to be found in its body of
technical, scientific and m anagerial knowledge, as well as in its
productive capacity. In these fields we have to acknowledge
deficiencies which we know it will take time to wipe out. M ore­
over, the low rate of productivity makes our labour, in spite of
the relatively small wages it receives, quite expensive. At the
present time, low nutrition, a deficient sense of responsibility, the
fear of being out of work, govern the rate at which work is per­
formed. These factors are the environmental effects of historical
circumstances. Tribal controls and taboos followed by the auto­
cratic paternalism of colonialism have held in leash the sense of