Battle to Halt Graft Scourge in Africa Ebbs -- The New York TimesLUSAKA, Zambia — The fight against corruption in Africa’s most pivotal nations is faltering as public agencies investigating wrongdoing by powerful politicians have been undermined or disbanded and officials leading the charge have been dismissed, subjected to death threats and driven into exile.
“We are witnessing an era of major backtracking on the anticorruption drive,” said Daniel Kaufmann, an authority on corruption who works at the Brookings Institution. “And one of the most poignant illustrations is the fate of the few anticorruption commissions that have had courageous leadership. They’re either embattled or dead.”
Experts, prosecutors and watchdog groups say they fear that major setbacks to anticorruption efforts in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are weakening the resolve to root out graft, a stubborn scourge that saps money needed to combat poverty and disease in the world’s poorest region. And in Zambia, a change of leadership has stoked fears that the country’s zealous prosecution of corruption is ebbing.
Read more ....
My Comment: The New York Times focuses on corruption, but I believe that while the corruption is horrible in Africa (I was witnessed to it when I worked for the UN 20 years ago), the bigger problem is that Africa's political class has embraced a culture of socialism and state control as the sole remedy to solve Africa's problems. Absence the rule of law .... which any state government would find intolerable .... we now have the perfect storm of economic collapse and guaranteed poverty. As long as this culture and thinking exists .... Africa cannot change.
I have blogged before that even if Bono from U2 was successful in transferring $1 trillion dollars to assistance projects in Africa today .... if I was to go to Africa 10 years later .... there will still be wars, famines, poverty, and corruption.