The founder and president of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said that external forces are working against Africa’s economic progress.
He made the remarks on Thursday at the Investing in Africa forum, held alongside the IMF-World Bank spring meetings in Washington, DC.
Advocating stronger regional cooperation, Dangote dismissed the possibility of a successful single African market without first strengthening regional markets.
“The Africa free trade will work, but it can only work when the regional markets work,” the industrialist said.
“The regional markets must work first before you leave because the dotted points [of] all these regional markets are not working.
“You cannot have one single market. And you know, you have to also remember that there are a lot of international interest, I’m sorry to say, this international interest in not wanting to see Africa grow.”
He noted that Africa has lacked functional refineries for a long period, attributing this to vested interests preventing such developments across the continent.
Speaking on foreign investment, Dangote said investor decisions are largely influenced by perceived risks, stressing that Africans must take the lead in investing locally.
“Foreigners will invest. But foreigners are also smart people. Anything you talk about risk, they want to look at it 10 times. So how can we derisk? The only way to derisk is we Africans must lead and show that that risk is a perceived risk [and] not a real risk,” Dangote said.
“If I’m not investing in Africa, there is no way I will go and convince anybody outside the continent to come and invest. So, I must now show that this risk is perceived.”
He added that while no country is entirely risk-free, effective risk management is key to attracting investment.
Dangote also urged wealthy Africans to invest within the continent rather than keeping funds abroad.
“I sometimes say that in terms of cash, there might be some people who have more cash than me, but don’t keep that money in a foreign bank, bring it back home, invest, the place is good, you’ll make a lot of money,” he said.
“But we have this problem of always looking for foreign investors. Foreign investors will never come because the foreign investor is smarter than us, so they won’t come.”
He concluded that foreign investors would only commit when they see clear evidence of local investment and confidence in the continent’s economy.
“They can only come when they see that Africans are committed, serious, and we are investing our own money,” he added.