Resource Curse Unavoidable in African Countries

Resource Curse unavoidable in African Countries

Natural resources like oil increase the GDP of African countries but little of the wealth helps the people. The people of the country own theses resources, however, they do not inherit the wealth of the resources. The lifestyle of the people is very poor and majority of them live les than two dollars a day. Mortality rate keeps increases because of inadequate health care system and few trained medical workers. The resource applies to majority of African countries that have natural resources. For instance the vast resource wealth in Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria has lead to corruption, bad government and chronic underdevelopment. While the citizens of these countries suffer from poverty, the leaders and elites of the countries spend money anyhow they want. Most of the elites travel all the time to the Western countries with their families and the world seems right to them. In reality, the citizens cannot even travel from one city to the other because of bad road. This paper will emphasize on two reasons why natural resources ‘oil’ is not a blessing but a curse.

Discovering a natural resource in a country is a good thing but the main problem this not the natural resources but the management of it. Most African countries with natural resources depend only on the resources wealth as their form of income. ‘Rent’ as it is called is the major reason why African countries blessed with natural resources are very underdeveloped today. In most western countries or most democratic countries, citizens pay taxes to enable the government to provide social services and also national security. Citizens make demands of what they want and where they want changes and they government tries to provide these needs. Civil servants are obedient to the citizens and serve them well because they are aware that their tax money pays their salaries. But in most African countries with Natural resources, the reverse is the case. The citizens are not taxed and the only source of income and government spending is rent. The government is not dependent on the people’s revenue and therefore is less incentivized to serve them. The civil servants do not serve the people to meet their needs because they know that their salaries is from ‘rent and not from taxes.

Another problem is that natural resources are not used for the interest of the pubic but for private benefits. “oil states generate not public goods for development but private and political goods instead”(Diamond and Mosbacher 2013). Political elites do not have any incentive to provide the public needs but rather they accumulate private wealth and for their own benefits. Resource income is seen as free money and if you have access to it, then grab as much as you for yourself and family. While these money could be used to build roads, schools, hospitals, parks and many more, they are been saved in an international private account and stored for personal use. The public is left to be independent and scramble for whatever is left. Statistics shows that these countries make all of money from their resources, however, the money end up in private pockets. That is why resource rich countries perform worse than resource poor countries.

From class lectures and reading, I have come to the conclusion that the higher the resource wealth, the greater the corruption, economic and political instability and underdevelopment. The resource curse thesis is correct in the case of most African countries. Resource rich countries have failed to benefit from their natural wealth and are performing worse in economic development. Transparency and accountability of the revenue will help reduce the problems like underdevelopment and corruption that these countries face.