By Merlyn Mwanza
Sudanese-British billionaire Mohammed Fathi Ahmed Ibrahim commonly known referred to simply as Mo Ibrahim has castigated the west for failing to quickly come to the aid of Zambia over the debt stress, when they have promptly assisted Ukraine and Greece from their problems.
In what has been his repeated theme of condemning western double standards, Ibrahim urged the USA led western world to behave properly towards Africa, saying even during the Covid-19 pandemic they “stupidly” held on to the vaccines and did little to help poor countries whose economic fortunes were decimated by the pandemic.
He said engagements like the EU-Africa summit were good but what mattered were deliverables from the same engagements, saying trillions of dollars were raised during the pandemic with very little to no help coming to Africa.
“Now they are in debt stress. What is happening? When Ukraine has a problem, when Greece has a problem the IMF and World Bank immediately sort it out. Now what is happening in Zambia? What is happening in Sierra Leone? Two years, they did not act. No!” Ibrahim, the former Celtel owner which he sold for $3.4 billion, said, and accused the same western world of doing little to clamp down on illicit funds from Africa which were being funnelled through western companies in terms of profit shifting and other avenues.
He said the western dominated financial architecture was tailored towards benefiting the west as there was no voice from the consumers of services offered by the same financial institutions from that end.
“That’s why these banks will focus on Greece, will focus on Ukraine … The board (of these banks) doesn’t know where is Zambia,” Ibrahim said.
On Africa’s ambivalence towards the Russia-Ukraine war, Ibrahim said the attitude by Africa was not about pay back for colonialism but the apparent hypocrisy from the west, whereby the USA sponsored a UN resolution condemning Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty yet they did the same by invading a sovereign Iraq.
“Either there is international rules or no rules. You tell me? Are the rules only applying to Russia not US? Let’s not be hypocrites. This is the problem. We need to look at the mirror sometimes, realize what we say and what we do. What happened in Libya? You went and broke this country, (and) will never put it back together again. Is that acceptable? Let’s be honest in dealing with this stuff … So don’t lecture us … Don’t lecture other people,” said Ibrahim and insisting that there was no exceptionalism in the rules.
Ibrahim is a billionaire businessman who after working for several telecommunication companies founded Celtel which when he was selling it had 24 million customers in 14 countries at $3.4 billion .
In 2005, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa as well as creating the Ibrahim Index of African Governance to evaluate nations performance.
In 2007 he initiated the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership which awards $5 million to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents and democratically transfer of power to their successors.
Hit net worth stands at $1.2 billion.
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