The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa`s Wealth, Burgis Tom

This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africas past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africas resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth 333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction. But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels Frances nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africas resource states is systematic looting. Like its victims, its beneficiaries have names.