A Case for Dissolving Africa’s Current Power Structures

Africa is made up of a hodgepodge of countries, each internationally recognized as a state yet none capable of standing on its own two feet. Within each of these countries is a machinery of state which in most of them is governed by a powerful executive be they nominally elected or militarily imposed. At a technical level all heads of state are equal therefore when any of the African heads of state travels the globe they are granted the diplomatic protocol befitting a head of state. This includes meetings with the most powerful rulers of politics and business. While their status grants them access to these centers of power they really have no influence on any international decision making especially those decisions concerning their own countries. When they are brought into the decision making process it is more to be informed than to be consulted.

Failure in Service Delivery

While the government of each country is basically functional with departments that to one extent or another structured to deliver services to the citizens they are generally ineffective. That is not to say that they do not cover some of the basics. There are functioning departments of education, finance, agriculture, police, legislatures that pass laws and courts that enact them but by and large each of these is meeting only the minimum requirements well below the needs of the citizens.

With a history of division and factionalism coupled with low revenues African leaders are handicapped in any attempt to provide strong leadership. What has instead happened is a keen sense of political theater has evolved. Heads of state and government surround themselves with the trappings of power and wield power within their states with impunity. They adjust the machinery of state to an such an extent that they become the source and embodiment of power. Access to and acquisition of power becomes the driving force for those in the leadership structure and decisions are made not with the interests of the population in mind but with the aim of advancing in the power machinery.

Misdirected Accountability

There is no accountability in place for actually delivering to the people. The only accountability is to the power structure and that accountability is measured in loyalty to the individual who holds the highest office. The result of this is a lack of development of African intellectualism beyond theory. There are a great many ideas for the building of the continent to the heights it is capable of achieving but those ideas are stuck in the hallways of academic institutions far from the continent where free discussion of those ideas can take place without fear of retribution.

This lack of honest intellectual contribution to debate has left public debate in the hands of so called leaders simply jockeying for power and pretty much amounts to hurling petty accusations and personal attacks back and forth. This form of debate, because of its hollow nature, does nothing to serve the people. The leaders are insecure in their positions and as a result squash any public debate of anything that even appears to question their authority. Being the centers of power they have become accustomed to slavish sycophancy and are unfamiliar with true and honest debate on the merits of arguments.

The Illusion of Power

The reason for their insecurity is that they know while they peddle the illusion of power to those around them, power validated by control of the machinery of state and demonstrated by accoutrements such as limousines, bodyguards, airplanes and lavish residences with which they accessorize their personas, in reality they have no power at all. Living in this reality they operate under the very real fear that the cloak they have so carefully woven over the eyes of their subjects and followers will be pulled back and the people will be able to see the truth. The only people for whom this is a frightening prospect are the leaders themselves.

If all these leadership structures were combined into a single one there would be great savings from a resource utilization standpoint and the single leader would have true power and their current insecurities would be replaced by a confidence that would show itself in the public discussion of issues.

In addition to being more confident, the new leader would also be accountable. The individual would have authority as well as resources to carry out the responsibilities of office. Although this person would have the power, that power would be kept in balance by an independent legislature and an independent judiciary.

Potential Savings from Consolidation

Looking at if from the perspective of efficient use of resources Africa is really wasting a lot of time and effort as well as foregoing many opportunities. Just at the government operations level the waste can be illustrated in a simple table.

Resource	20 Countries	One State	Difference
Heads of State	20	1	19
Ministers	400	10	390
Ministerial Vehicles	1,600	40	1,560
Assistant Ministers	800	20	780
Assistant Ministerial Vehicles	1,600	40	1,560
Ministerial Permanent Secretaries	400	10	390
Ministerial Under Secretaries	1,600	40	1,560
Embassies and Foreign Missions	3,000	150	2,850
Ambassadors	3,000	150	2,850
Embassy Personnel	150,000	7,500	142,500
Legislative Buildings	20	1	19
Heads of Military	20	1	19
Military Service Heads	60	3	57
Total	162,520	7,966	154,554

If the twenty identified countries combined their government operations into a single entity there would be significant savings from just the few items identified above. A full streamlining of all the governments in all the countries would result in the elimination of several hundred thousand personnel and that money currently tied up in administrative matters could be directed towards actually delivering services to the people rather than supporting an administrative structure that devours financial resources at a rate higher than its ability to deliver service. Only the vehicles for ministers and assistant ministers were shown on the table but in addition to them, all the other departments shown also have vehicles. Each of the embassies operates several vehicles as do the legislatures and military command structures. In addition, people at this level of government have personal staff attending to them ranging from drivers to body guards to secretaries, personal assistants, cooks, butlers, gardeners, pilots and so on. With a reduction in the total number of these high level people, the expense of the entire support structure under them would also be eliminated.

Each of these countries spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year maintaining embassies, militaries and the machinery of state. These are hard earned dollars that could be otherwise directed to other needs. By eliminating the unneeded embassies alone, over three billion dollars a year would be freed up. This money alone, if used to pay down the current debt load of all the twenty countries combined even at prevailing interest rates would eliminate that debt within a few years with no help whatsoever from external countries.

These countries in total spend over five billion dollars a year on new purchases, equipment and parts to support the twenty militaries and their assorted service branches of air force, army and navy. The consolidation of twenty militaries into one would reduce that expense by about 90% leaving over four billion dollars for use in development work.

If the money from these examples and all the other savings obtained by eliminating existing power structures were combined and used for debt servicing in the first full budget year, that portion of Africa would become debt free at an international level.

With a conservative operating figure of about fifteen billion dollars freed up and now available this portion of Africa would now be in the position to direct that money to development needs. This is an enormous amount of money and several multiples of the foreign aid currently received by all the twenty countries combined. The commendable efforts of Tony Blair to direct more money to the elimination of world hunger and disease amounts to committing around two hundred million pounds a year to the elimination of third world debt and improving education and delivery of health services. This is a great idea and a wonderful effort but the amount proposed is only a faint shadow of that available from the continent itself.