Aliko Dangote, founder and president of the Dangote Group, says foreign interests are working against Africa’s growth.
The billionaire spoke on Thursday at the Investing in Africa forum, held on the sidelines of the ongoing IMF-World Bank spring meetings in Washington, DC.
Calling for stronger regional integration, the philanthropist dismissed the idea of successful implementation of a single African market without a functioning regional market.
“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.”
Dangote said Africa has not had any refinery in “donkey years”, noting that “there are so many interests not allowing” refinery projects in other countries to happen.
On attracting foreign capital to the continent, the entrepreneur stressed that foreign investment is often driven by risk perception.
He said Africans must first invest in their continent before foreign investors can come in.
“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.”
The billionaire said there is no country free of risks, “but you must know how to mitigate this risk”.
Dangote called on rich Africans to invest their wealth in the region and keep it in offshore bank accounts.
“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 said they can only come when they see that Africans are committed, serious, and “we are investing our own money”.
