Hottestgistnaija.com
h
China is Africa’s biggest trading partner, with trade volume expected to grow to $1.7tr by 2030. The largest investments by the Asian giant comes to Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, and Angola.
Over the last 10 years, China has justified its business with Africa as mutually beneficial. According to its leaders, it obtains natural resources from the continent in exchange for infrastructure development — roads, power supply, stadiums, schools, bridges, and others.
However, host countries do not often earn the rewards as advertised by China. There have been widespread reports of employee mistreatment, supply of substandard raw materials, importation of inferior equipment, and shoddy construction in several places where Chinese companies operate.
Although the Chinese government promises job creation for the host countries, the Chinese often import thousands of their nationals to do the jobs that locals can effectively do. Chinese labourers are ferried into Africa and paid better than the locals. In South Africa, for instance, the Chinese partnership may have cost the country up to 75,000 jobs between 2000 and 2011.
In Zambia, employees in copper mines, had to work for two years before being given safety helmets.
In Nigeria, there have been several reports of Chinese double standards and high level corruption. In companies such as Huawei, CCCC, and others, Nigerian nationals are paid much lower than the Chinese expatriates who are doing the same jobs.
Also, Chinese organisations have failed to develop local skills and facilitate technology transfer. Instead, they rely on private agreements with corrupt politicians to sidestep the terms of their engagement.
Although China promises to collaborate with local companies to develop the country, it absolutely ignores pedigreed local firms which may provide useful insight and capacity to help the foreigners deliver better quality of service to Nigerians.
Chinese companies often access loans at an interest rate of less than 3% while Nigerian businesses are made to pay about 30%. However, with their cost-cutting systems, they maximise profits and repatriate the cash to their country in a massive capital flight from Nigeria.
Government also loses hundreds of millions of naira in unpaid taxes. Ironically, this would not happen if Nigerian companies are allowed to bid for the same projects and given loans at the same rates.
Instead, hundreds of construction, supply, and manufacturing are shutting down because they cannot compete under the conditions created by local politicians to favour Chinese interests.
Chinese companies have been treating Nigerians badly for years and new contracts with them only suggest that Nigeria approves of their methods. As far back as 2002, at least 45 Nigerians on the overnight shift were burnt to death at West Africa Rubber Products Limited, a Chinese company, in Ikorodu, Lagos, when a fire broke out in the factory, which had been locked from outside by the Chinese owners.
But apart from these forms of chicanery, Chinese-built infrastructure are not built to endure.
The idea, according to researchers, is that required training and tools are not given to Africans to manage the infrastructure the Chinese are currently building. This way, when the initial pay-in-kind partnership expires, African countries will be forced to pay China again, this time in cash, to maintain or rebuild the same bridges, stadiums, hospitals, and roads. An example is the Ilo Awela – Oju Ore road, Ogun State constructed by CCECC in 2012. It is already giving way, even though it is only five years old.
For Nigeria, the danger is that the country will be made to pay for Chinese in Nigeria. If politicians do not exercise oversight functions on Chinese projects being undertaken in Nigeria, nor probe the quality of delivered jobs, the Chinese firms are able to get away with exploitative approach to doing business with Nigeria.
Nigerian political leaders appear to be more concerned with the private deals, which are made at the highest levels, to the detriment of the rest of the country. Many politicians are rewarded with cash, spa treatment, foreign holidays, payment of school fees and medical bills, and other expensive gifts.
This wake up call is designed to educate, and motivate Nigerians to pay attention to the danger in ceding the country to China at the detriment of immense youth population which will be saddled with the challenges or repaying the debts owed to China. The earlier we rally together in this movement against second slavery, the better for the incoming generation
