In my last installment I talked about the issue of land ownership and how it is a central to black economic emancipation. There are of course many views out there but one thing I know is that all  Africa needs in order to develop is buried deep in its belly. Africans have, however, failed to possess their resources to their benefit and continue to receive rent from mining conglomerates whose fortunes are not necessarily redeployed to address its social needs. However let me leave that debate for another day.

Besides the ownership of land, there is another critical factor for economic development and emancipation and that is - the work ethic. About 50 years ago the average American citizen was 20 times wealthier than a Chinese and yet today, the average American is to be only 5 times richer and the gap is fast closing. The sole reason for this gap closing is the mere fact that the average Chinese works an estimated 1000 hours per annum more than the average American. Unfortunately as Africans we do not even feature when it comes to the work ethic.

Coupled with the work ethic is of course taking self-responsibility for our economic progress. I was quite dismayed the other day to see on TV, a long queue of black South Africans complaining that they had not yet received the promised RDP house and they were blaming foreigners for that. Now that is so disempowering when you truly believe that your government owes you a home and a monthly grant. That is our reality here and in trying to assist and ameliorate poverty, we have inadvertently destroyed the culture of a work ethic.

This is not only the case in South Africa but across the whole continent where we have seen how people cannot feed themselves, how NGO's are expected to deal with our social ills and how so called aid has created a dependency syndrome. We have become victims of the capitalist system and disempowered in the process.

Yes it is necessary that liberation governments address the inequalities of the past but as Bill Clinton aptly put it, "The purpose of politics is to give people tools to make the most of their lives."

Let us understand that the work ethic is a cultural phenomenon. It is driven by the will to succeed. It is a result of our children witnessing our day to day hard work and the enjoyment of the fruits of hard labor that do not come overnight. It is not about instant gratification or about facilitating a tender and getting a fee without doing any work nor is about the department of education adjusting the pass mark for our matric students so that the number may look good. All around us we unfortunately are seeing instant wealth without hard work and are conditioning our communities to demand things while hard work is for the immigrants. Therein lies the poison that we are passing from generation to generation while other developing nations particularly in Asia are slowly becoming economic giants.

Our politics too are certainly not promoting hard work and the work ethic. They have become more about cadre deployment and party cronyism and this too, discourages hard work and delayed gratification. I still insist, as I did many months ago, that the underdevelopment of Africa is unfortunately being caused by us Africans and we cannot continue blame to the imperialists and liberals.

Vince Musewe is an economist and you can contact him on [email protected]

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