Page 39 - Afrika Must Unite

24 AFRICA MUST UNITE
industrialization than almost any other region in the world.
Potential reserves of iron ore, for instance, would last some two
thousand years. Coal deposits are estimated at 4,500 million
tons. The Sahara’s oil reserves are thought to be as great as
those in the Arabian peninsula. N atural gas abounds in the
bowels of the Sahara. Northern Rhodesia is reported to have
the second largest vanadium deposits in the world. Potential
hydro-electrical power is almost limitless. In Ghana we have
bauxite reserves estimated at some 200 million tons. I have
mentioned only a few of our natural resources; m any other
figures, equally impressive, could be given. W hen the whole
continent has been geologically surveyed, immense new riches
will undoubtedly be discovered.
The true explanation for the slowness of industrial develop­
ment in Africa lies in the policies of the colonial period.
Practically all our natural resources, not to mention trade,
shipping, banking, building, and so on, fell into, and have
remained in, the hands of foreigners seeking to enrich alien/
investors, and to hold back local economic initiative. O ut of
£148,000,000 allocated between 1946 and 1956 under the U.K .
Colonial Development and Welfare Aid, only £545,000, less than
half per cent, was directly used for industrial development.1
Capital investment from outside is, of course, required in
Africa. But only if there is real political independence can the
profits from the investment of this capital be shared in a way
which is fair both to the outside investor and to the people of the
country where the investment is made.
The way in which many foreign companies obtained their
concessions in Africa was often sordid, to say the least. A Com­
mission of Enquiry, set up to investigate the granting of
concessions in the Gold Coast, recently discovered some very
revealing facts.
These concessions were secured by local agents persuading the
chiefs, the custodians of tribal and Stool lands, to sign away the
mineral and tim ber rights of their people for purely nominal
sums. Some money, a few hundred yards of cloth, a few cases of
whisky and gin, were usually sufficient inducement to secure the
1 Special Study on Economic Conditions in Non-Self-Goveming Territories. United
Nations, 1958.