This article appears in the April 23, 2021 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

Africa Briefs

World Bank, IMF Force Green Reset Through Financial ‘Restructuring’

A report issued by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on March 25 announced that, as part of the “recovery” from the pandemic, the debt of the world’s poorest countries would now be used as a lever to force on those countries the Great Reset genocide dictated by the City of London. “This paper discusses World Bank and IMF support for addressing fiscal and debt distress in IDA [the world’s poorest] countries, with emphasis on strong continued concessional [low-interest] flows for green, resilient, and inclusive development,” reads the introduction. The translation is, “The only way you will get further debt relief or credit, is by agreeing to kill your population ‘to save the planet.’”

As part of this discussion, the report concluded that the G20 should agree to extend their Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) through to the end of the year, but with one proviso: The G20 had to “publicly commit that this is the last extension of the DSSI,” thus forcing the 49 DSSI-eligible countries to confront their continued (financial) existence head on. As of April 7—two weeks from the IMF/WB dictate—the G20 had complied, both by extending the DSSI, and also by stating that it will be terminated at the end of the year.

Africa Catholic Charities Unite in Call for Debt Forgiveness

Catholic Church entities in Africa earlier this week joined the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the COVID-19 Commission in the launching of the debt cancellation campaign for countries in Africa amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The campaign, dubbed “COVID-19 Debt Relief Campaign in Africa: Issuing a Call for Dialogue, Reflection, and Advocacy,” was launched during a webinar on Wednesday, April 7, which featured speakers from leading Catholic relief networks, speaking from locations in Africa. According to the Catholic Daily, the call for debt forgiveness was also raised by Pope Francis, when he spoke before the IMF that same day.

Joining the Vatican Dicastery and the Commission in the launch were Caritas Africa, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM), and the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa (ACWECA).

“Now is the time to see, judge, and act on behalf of the poor and vulnerable. In times of difficulty and crisis, we can see God’s action in solidarity,” said Ghanaian Archbishop Gabriel Justice Yaw Anokye, the President of Caritas Africa, during the launch, as reported by the Association for Catholic Information in Africa.

Now Africa’s COVID Collapse Threatens Major Infrastructure

The parliament of Kenya voted April 7 to spend KSh36 billion ($335 million) to bail out two state-owned enterprises: Kenya Power and Kenya Airways, along with several universities. The source of the funds was a KSh255 billion ($2.4 billion) loan the country had received the week before from the International Monetary Fund. Some of the conditionalities of the loan are that Kenya perform a thorough audit “and reform” of nine state-owned enterprises, including Kenya Ports and Kenya Railways. One element in this is that western bankers are very interested to discover any loans from Chinese financial institutions, especially the terms of such loans.

Like other African countries, Kenya has been hit hard financially, with tax and operating revenues down, as economic activity has collapsed under pandemic lockdowns. Like many utilities, the problems of Kenya Power started long before the pandemic, which only provided the “final straw.” Kenya Power—the electricity distribution arm, which buys its power from KenGen and re-sells it to consumers—was doubly hit, in that its customers were unable to pay, which forced the company to borrow money on the open market (an expensive proposition), causing its debt to rise as income continued to fall. A collapse in the value of the Kenyan shilling further increased borrowing costs.

Frustrated Kenyans—equally upset with their own government for increasing the foreign debt as with the financial shylocks at IMF (accusing both of corruption, i.e. theft)—complained so stridently that the hashtag StopLoaningKenya was trending on Twitter for days (“we have nothing to lose,” “they want us to die”). As of April 16, a petition to have the loan revoked had reached 234,000 signatures.

Africa Has Less Than 2% of World’s COVID Vaccines: WHO

Less than 2% of the 690 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to date globally have been in Africa, according to World Health Organization figures. As reported on ReliefWeb, “Forty-five African countries have received vaccines, 43 of them have begun vaccinations, and only 13 million of the 31.6 million doses delivered so far have been administered. The pace of vaccine rollout is, however, not uniform, with 93% of the doses given in 10 countries.”

But the South African Daily Maverick reported March 30 that the country may soon be producing “hundreds of millions” of doses on its own, after a $214 million renovation of the Aspen Pharmacare production facility in Port Elizabeth—already the “most significant” source of sterile goods on the continent—which is now certified to produce the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. South Africa says the J&J “one and done” vaccines will be reserved for rural areas, where a return trip for a second shot may be difficult.

Egypt has been certified to produce 80 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccines annually, which will enable it to provide for neighboring countries and its own domestic population of 100 million.

Terror in Mozambique Halts Natural Gas Field Development

On March 24, the town of Palma in northern Mozambique—near the Tanzanian border—was struck by a terror attack much more sophisticated and intense than the previous, sporadic killings there by ostensible Islamic jihadists. At least dozens of people were killed as the terrorists invaded the defenseless town from three directions and began shooting and beheading people on the streets, while blocking all exit routes. They held Palma for 12 days and destroyed it.

In addition to creating an instantaneous humanitarian disaster (35,000 displaced), the attack has also brought the construction of the nearby major LNG fuel extraction and processing plant to a halt. Personnel of the project had lived in Palma. The project is one of Africa’s largest of its type, being developed by the French company Total. ExxonMobil and Italy’s ENI also have projects there.

For Mozambique, the subject has suddenly changed from development, to terror and response. In that response, six member-states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which up until now had balked at being drawn into the issue of terrorism, were forced to hold an emergency “Double Troika” meeting. Six of the 16 members of the body declared in a statement that they would consider “a proportionate regional response” at a follow-up summit to be held April 29.

Skeptics Speak Out: Africa Not Attracted to the Poison Green Pill

Not all Africans are sold on U.S. Climate Czar John Kerry’s vision of a carbon-free world. While perhaps not yet ready to say what some may suspect—that the elimination of fossil fuels is a blueprint for mass death—a courageous few are speaking out. One of them is W. Gyude Moore, a former minister of public works in Liberia, now a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, headquartered in Washington. “There’s this idea that because Africa is lacking in legacy infrastructure, it’s a good canvas to paint the energy future,” Moore told Quartz Africa on March 12. “But no African country has volunteered itself for that,” he added. The continent “requires energy at a scale that renewables cannot meet. So it seems immoral to restrict options for energy sources.” The Quartz article was titled, “Biden’s crusade against fossil fuels won’t work in Africa.”

The week before, on March 4, Moore had co-authored an opinion column in the widely read Washington publication, The Hill, titled “Economic Growth in Africa Will Not Be Achieved by a Blanket Ban on Fossil Fuels.” Along with his co-author Vijaya Ramachandran, a senior fellow and the director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute in the United States, he wrote, “Africa’s first priority is to grow more food. Composting and recycling can only go so far … Large-scale, energy-intensive water control projects that rely on fossil fuels must be in the mix—just as they are in wealthy countries.”

Murefu Barasa, managing director at an energy consulting firm in Nairobi, told Quartz, “There’s a lot of pressure from development agencies to say something like, ‘No more fossil fuel projects,’ but ... babies die in blackouts. So the tradeoff of connecting the millions of people who don’t have power, versus doubling emissions, is well worthwhile.”