Examination of witnesses (Questions 449
- 462)
TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY 1998
MR PETER
POOLEY, BRIGADIER
GERALD BLAKEY,
MR CHARLES
CULLIMORE, and MR
CHRISTOPHER BUCKMASTER
Chairman
449. I must start by thanking you for coming
and I apologise for keeping you waiting, but since I saw you were
sitting in the public gallery, you know the reason why and I hope
you will excuse us for keeping you waiting. Can I welcome your
team too, Brigadier Gerald Blakey, welcome, and Mr Buckmaster
and Mr Cullimore. I understand that you would like to open with
a short statement which might be helpful to us. As you know, the
Committee is about to visit Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda with a view
to pursuing the overarching objective as to how abject poverty
is reduced by half by 2015 and with the view firmly in our minds
that it is the private sector that is the engine of developments,
so we are very keen to hear from you on these subjects. Perhaps
you would like to go ahead with your opening statement.
(Mr Pooley) Thank you, sir. Perhaps I should just
say who we are. The British African Business Association, BABA,
is a federation of the three associations that are on my right
and left. Mr Cullimore is Chief Executive of the Southern Africa
Business Association, Mr Buckmaster is in a similar role for the
Eastern Africa Association and Brigadier Blakey is for the West
Africa Committee. Brigadier Blakey also furnishes the secretariat
for BABA which only acts when the three associations think it
is better that they work together rather than they work separately.
It is real subsidiarity. We have amongst the three associations
over 400 members and a list is available and we will give it to
the Clerk,[6]
but you will see that it includes all the high-ground of British
enterprise in Africa. It also includes and gives a service to
smaller firms and independents. We are about to publish a yearbook
in fact and Brigadier Blakey again has a supply of our yearbook
for those who might be interested, especially perhaps those going
to Eastern Africa because there are good summary articles on Eastern
Africa in that yearbook. I would just like to elaborate as quickly
as I can on the evidence we have given, which is very brief evidence.
You have a two-page cover note from us covering a paper which
was put to the Commission by the European-level body, the Business
Council for Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean. That document
is one which had a major British input. It is in curious English
because it was written by a Hamburger in Hamburg during a drafting
meeting which was conducted largely in French, such is Europe
these days, but I can assure you that it is the fruits of a very
highly developed dialogue that that organisation, of which I am
now President, has had with the Commission and that we have had
with our European partners. The Commission have received it very
well. Commissioner Pinheiro gave us an hour and a half of his
time and at the end said that he found no point to dispute in
the document. We do not think there is a major conflict with the
UK departments with which we also dialogue of course and I have
read 3.2 kilogrammes of evidence without coming across a direct
contradiction on either side, but we do come from different directions
and we have different priorities. The less doctrinaire NGOs, like
Oxfam, we also believe have made a similar analysis, even though
they might propose different solutions. You have just said, sir,
that the private sector external and indigenous has to be the
driving force for sustainable development and also for poverty
alleviation in the period from now on and we are determined in
BABA to answer that call and we have thought very deeply about
it, not out of real idealistic reasons, but because it is in British
businesses' interest and European businesses' interest that African
countries should be helped to develop into viable trading partners,
which is good for our exports, and attractive locations for investment.
Now, in order that we and African entrepreneurs can meet these
expectations, some adjustments to the Lomé framework and
we think very considerable improvement in the business infrastructure
are necessary. This is largely the aid area. I do emphasise, and
I think it will be obvious from our documentation, that when we
speak of infrastructure, we do not just mean the physical infrastructure,
but the social and political infrastructure. As for everyone who
wants to contribute to development, the work of business persons
is very difficult unless they operate against a background of
stable and accountable governments first, sound and liberal economic
policies and responsible social policies. For us, just as for
others who have given evidence to you, better education and healthcare,
especially for women, are also prerequisites and these infrastructural
improvements cannot take place without a substantial, well-focused
aid programme. We have seen a lot of improvements in infrastructure.
Most of our markets now have sound currencies, single-digit inflation,
interest rates approaching reasonable levels, and the level of
risk for investors and traders has reduced significantly, but
there is a long way to go and there have been steps backwards
as well as forwards, for instance, on corruption, and in some
countries violent crime is an increasing impediment to traders
and investors. On trade, we and our European colleagues feel that
the Lomé tariff preferences themselves have had some value
and the commodity protocols as part of the preference system have
had a lot of value, but for relatively few countries. Bananas
of course is one of these and we had a most interesting wait,
I can assure you, and were not the slightest bit bored. However,
the failure of African countries to trade successfully of which
you have heard so much has, in our view, much more to do with
a lack of competitiveness than with a lack of adequate preferential
margins. Preferences are being steadily eroded, steadily and inevitably,
and the process will accelerate and for us the aim must be to
make a radical attack on competitiveness and the development of
trade by all available other means, and we do not mean just an
improved ACP countries' capacity to trade with us, with Europe,
but their capacity to trade with whoever and we agree with others
that a long transitional period of a five or ten-year WTO waiver
is necessary, but not simply to preserve preferential privileges
for as long as possible, the period must be used for ACP countries
to prepare for the globalised trading system. It must be used
to enable the regional integration initiatives, to which we attach
importance, to meet their ambitious targets, to develop institutions,
governmental and financial institutions especially, to attract
investment and, above all, to develop local business competence.
On this last point, the private sector has, we think, a special
responsibility in terms of the transfer of skills. Some years
of grace will also be necessary to consider and negotiate the
best possible trade packages for each region and country and there
you will see that in the BCEAM paper everyone attaches special
importance to the progressive and rapid dismantlement of the access
barriers of the Common Agricultural Policy. You cannot negotiate
a balanced and fair trade arrangement with South Africa or with
any food-producing country in Africa while that grotesque distortion
remains. South Africa is an extremely important case and the trade
negotiations with South Africa have run into the buffers on the
Common Agricultural Policy. On investment, we feel that a necessary
kick-start can only come from external sources, that is to say,
European and other, rather than African. This is the most critical
point of all, I think. Even if you have the most encouraging environment
for business in a given country, local investment does not normally
grow faster than local savings. Savings come from people with
jobs, real jobs and secure jobs. None of your witnesses, so far
as I am aware, has drawn attention to the fact that Africa is
rapidly becoming urbanised. In a decade or two, the urban population
will outnumber the rural population. So the major poverty alleviation
target must be to find jobs for townspeople and only inward investment
on a massive scale can do this. Then you will begin to fuel domestic
investment from domestic savings, but you cannot attract investment
unless you have the macro-political and macro-economic factors
in place which I have referred to earlier and unless you have
some assurance of good governance, the rule of law and protection
from expropriation, which we see happening everywhere, and that
there is a reasonable prospect of return on investment of the
sort that one can get elsewhere, 15 per cent or so. So, coming
to a conclusion in respect of aid, trade and investment, we welcome
the emphasis given to the private sector. We are concerned that
the words you have used, that everybody uses about the private
sector, that this has not filtered down to the working level of
civil servants that we deal with even in Brussels, even in London.
Civil servants are trained in a different culture and we see that
if this shift or reorientation away from public action to private
initiative is to succeed, there will be a great need for a new
sort of expert advice on programmes and projects, including right
at the beginning the design of programmes and projects and on
individual investment opportunities and advice which can only
come from people experienced in the private sector. It is going
to take decades for risk-averse officials to absorb the culture
of business and in the meantime specialists from the private sector
will have to provide the necessary advice and guidance and we
are pressing hard at all levels for a institutionalised system
of using that advice in Brussels, in European capitals and in
the centres of African business. Unless the private sector is
involved in the designing of programmes for the private sector,
as we have seen already in South Africa and the case we can quote
to you of the so-called BIS, these programmes and projects for
the private sector will not work in practice. That is all I have
to say. I could say a great deal about poverty alleviation or
elimination and I hope you do not draw the conclusion that we
do not care about poverty. Of course we do. We absolutely have
to. As I said before, we come from a different direction from
the NGOs, but poverty and oppression in any country is bad news
for business. The instability created blights trade and investment
far beyond the borders of that country. We may not be one of the
caring professions, but when our members see a ruined country
like Uganda or Mozambique get up off its feet and begin the long
walk towards betterment, it gives our hearts a lift just as much
as it gives other people's.
Chairman: Thank you
very much indeed for that very important, detailed and dense statement.
Mrs Kingham
450. I too applaud and welcome the fact
that the private sector must be a driving force in terms of development
of countries, but I am slightly concerned that you seem to be
putting all of the emphasis on development of poverty alleviation
into the hands of governments and aid programmes rather than perhaps
looking at the responsibilities that also go with the private
sector who are obviously obtaining quite large benefits from agreements,
such as Lomé's and some of the protocols. In an era of
rights and responsibilities, I would like to ask you what you
feel your responsibilities as businesses should be in terms of
things like labour standards and in terms of ensuring that you
too are contributing to poverty alleviation and not just basically
putting it back into the hands of either bilateral or multilateral
aid programmes. In particular, I am concerned about where you
mentioned about assisting privatisation of public enterprises.
I have concerns about that.
(Mr Pooley) Well, it would be quite wrong to think
that we regard poverty alleviation as governmental business. Our
main contribution to poverty alleviation is the creation of jobs,
but, that said, that goes with, we hope, a responsible attitude
as investors and as traders, and responsible in other ways as
well to the environment. Now, I am not as experienced in what
actually happens on the ground in Africa as my colleagues are
and perhaps they will give examples, but you do find that those
investors who are there for the long term, which is not all investors,
we hope more will be interested in the future in the long term
rather than the quick profit. As Africa stabilises and you get
more long-term investors, you will have more organisations and
firms who see the value for them in ensuring that where they are
installed in a particular country, they make a real contribution
to poverty alleviation, to good housing, to education and to healthcare,
and if you have the opportunity to see what some maligned companies,
like Shell, have done in Nigeria in this respect, what some companies
who benefit from the protocols, like Tate & Lyle, for instance,
have done in Zambia and elsewhere to ensure that they are regarded
as responsible investors, not just responsible for making jobs,
but for easing the social, educational and health conditions of
the people who work for them and around them, then I think you
would be a little less worried than your question implies.
451. Can I come back on that because I did
actually see first hand very directly the effects of companies
like Shell in South Africa during the apartheid regime and was
desperately unimpressed, I must say, by some of the practices
and I have actually seen in my previous work the very poor practice
of some major companies which led me to feel quite ashamed of
some of the British input into some of those countries, so I feel
slightly encouraged if you say that in the long term you feel
that there may be a more responsible attitude to some of the work
forces in Africa. Would you actually agree though that there is
a quid pro quo in terms of companies, like the ones you
are representing here, receiving benefits from things like Lomé,
that perhaps you too should sign up to things like the ILO labour
standards, so it is not just a self-regulating process that you
are hoping in the future that employment practices will be better
and help to contribute to poverty alleviation, but you will actually
be tied into some kind of standards for labour and the environment?
(Mr Pooley) I think South Africa is a special
case and perhaps Mr Cullimore might be able to give a detailed
reply on that. I think the major point I would make is to reiterate
that if you have a stable background which encourages long-term
investment, you will have responsible companies investing and
behaving responsibly. The problem at the moment and in the past
has been that in unstable situations where profits have to be
made in the short term, you get a bunch of pirates who behave
very badly and some of them might belong to the big companies,
but I think those days are over and Lonrho is not what it was
and people are more responsible. In terms of ILO standards, et
cetera, I think there is the age-old problem for the businessman
that however willing he may be, however much he may feel that
the standards are good to observe, he has to have an eye on the
competition and you will not get businessmen as a group signing
up to abide by standards which are costly to them when it is absolutely
clear that none of their competitors are doing so, but might I
ask if Mr Cullimore could speak about South Africa and the wickedness
of British business there?
(Mr Cullimore) No businesses are perfect, but
I think that if you look back at the history, you will see that
a considerable number of British companies did actually sign up
to and implement the then code of practice during the days of
apartheid and were setting really a very good example of good
practice vis-á -vis their own work forces. There
may have been one or two exceptions. Could I just make two points?
One is of course do not let us forget that companies and businesses
are taxpayers like anybody else so when we are talking about how
we think aid might be used, I think companies have the same right,
if you like, to say how they think the contributions that they
are making towards the aid budget might be used most effectively
insofar as the private sector is concerned. The other point is
that if you look, and there is not time to do it now, but if you
like to look at the detailed suggestions in the memorandum which
Peter Pooley has not gone through again, I think you will find
quite a few of those actually are directed towards your sort of
concerns, the strengthening of financial institutions, the strengthening
of some of the representative institutions, like chambers of commerce
and so on, all of which I think leads to the creation not just
of a more stable business environment, but also one in which standards
across the board are higher, so there are quite a lot of specific
proposals in there which I think do demonstrate a sense of responsibility
on the part of the private sector. We have talked about the responsibility
for the private sector to help with the transfer of skills and
that would be something that the private sector would itself be
trying to help to do. There is the whole area of joint enterprises
where there is scope for private companies to come in perhaps
and help local and indigenous companies to develop. So I think
there is a recognition that the private sector has to play a part,
but it can only be in an overall environment where they can expect
to make a profit.
Mr Rowe
452. In this country there has at last been
a growth or the beginnings of a growth of big private companies
actually setting up their own universities. I just wondered about
the extent to which your members feel a responsibility towards
the emerging universities in these countries, or some of them
have been there a long time so they are not emerging, but towards
the university and higher education sector because clearly that
is an area in which the development of the skills on which these
companies will depend is very important.
(Mr Pooley) I cannot say. It is difficult to sum
up the views of 400 members on a matter we have not asked them
about, but they do emphasise the prior need for improving standards
of education and training of all sorts and at all levels in most
African countries. It is a hindrance to the successful conduct
of business that there is a poor supply at all levels of managers
perhaps in particular, but also technicians and specialists and
right down to the most basic level. I see Brigadier Blakey being
a little bit restive and I wonder if he might elaborate on this.
(Brigadier Blakey) There is no doubt that across
the board between the very big companies right down to quite small
ones who do have funds for this, there is a real interest in this
and a considerable investment in education, higher education and
skill transfer. Companies like the Leventis Group, who, by international
standards, are quite small, but well established in Nigeria, do
subsidise scholarships and they tend to subsidise scholarships
to offshore universities, universities in this country. Maybe
it is the businessman's concern in making a long-term investment
that perhaps the money has not gone into some of the universities
and colleges, like Ife University in Nigeria. So I think the answer
is that we would need notice to answer you fully, but the importance
of that type of investment is recognised, but because probably
of a long history of instability, there has been a reluctance
to invest directly overseas to indigenous universities.
453. One of the bees in my bonnet when I
worked in the DTI was that you saw in some parts of the world
a constant taking of a building to turn it into a college in order
to set up the training courses for the skills that were needed
and so on and so forth and a company would close it down and six
months later another company would come and say, "Let's find
a place and do it", and they set it up somewhere else but
in the same area and so on and it always seemed to me a balmy
waste of resource and that actually there could have been some
kind of rather more concentrated effort by some of the big investors
in actually creating that kind of institution and keeping it running
to which they could then graft on whichever courses they required
and it would have been a much better investment. Clearly you have
not asked your members about that, but it might be something you
might like to ask your members about.
(Mr Buckmaster) The whole question of education
certainly my members in the Eastern Africa Association have taken
very seriously, because it is the failure of certain countries
in Eastern Africa to generate competent and well-trained managers,
technicians, however you want to describe them, which is I think
one of the most important things holding back some African countries.
Certainly following the attitude and request from members, I have
taken up this particular issue and I have had quite a long discussion
with the Minister of Finance in Kenya saying that the Kenyans'
development is, in our judgment, undoubtedly being held back by
their failure to produce a good flow of qualified people. We have,
as an Association, given the emphasis much more, on education,
to try to persuade the Government of Kenya actually to improve
the existing universities in Kenya rather than taking the view
that private investment should set up its own private university.
That has been our policy in Kenya. Whether it is right or wrong,
I am not sure, but certainly our members are extremely concerned
about it.
Mr Rowe: That is encouraging.
Dr Tonge
454. Is it the case that the trade provisions
in Lomé IV, particularly trade preferences that required
a waiver, created uncertainty? You did touch on this in your opening
remarks. Also, was this a disincentive for people to invest?
(Mr Pooley) I do not think that the existence
of the preferences was a cause for uncertainty, nor do I think
the fact that the preferences are now being eroded and in some
cases are under challenge, though that is a cause of uncertainty,
is a major element in terms of failure to attract inward investment
or in terms of failure to trade. It has much more to do with competitiveness
and with management skills or the lack of them which we have been
talking about. I do think that we have heard a little too much
about the problem of preferences because these are things that
concern governments and that governments can do something about
and it is something that businessmen cannot do anything about.
We are rather anxious to redress the balance to make clear it
is understood that preferences are going to be eroded anyway,
the margin of preferences. You can preserve, I am sure, through
the WTO with all the voting weight that is there, you can preserve
the existing access provisions and make sure they do not get worse
so that a zero tariff does not go up to 5 per cent because the
Lomé arrangement is not really a free trade area. That
you can do, but what you cannot avoid is the extension of the
preference system to others, like Bangladesh, a very deserving
and very poor country, nor can you avoid the wheels of the Uruguay
Round settlement grinding remorselessly onwards and reducing the
value of those preferences, so let us get on with trade development
regardless of what preferences there may be and perhaps we should
have done so long ago.
455. Can I come back on something you said
earlier and I did not have a chance to get in when Mrs Kingham
was questioning you? I share her reservations about what multinational
companies get up to in under-developed countries, we all do, it
is a very common problem, and you are saying some very encouraging
things and indeed I have been encouraged recently talking to one
or two people that the multinationals are actually beginning to
be a lot more thoughtful about education and the environment and
so on. Have you made representations or has your organisation
made representations to the OECD and have you had any input into
this multilateral agreement, the MAI, that is going to be finalised
very, very soon, is it not? That seemed to us really to favour
the multinationals again and there was very little an individual
country could do to control the way they behave and I wondered
if your organisation had had any input at all into that agreement?
(Mr Pooley) Not as BABA. As a small organisation,
one cannot do everything, and we tend certainly to follow what
goes on in OECD rather than try to have an impact there, but these
are issues on which we talk not to the OECD, but to the DTI, for
instance, who will be representing the UK interest in the OECD,
so if there is any impact, it is indirect.
Chairman
456. Are the inadequacies of Lomé
IV, which you will be particularly familiar with, Mr Pooley, being
addressed by the proposals for Lomé V or if there is to
be a Lomé V?
(Mr Pooley) Well, the Lomé replacement,
whatever it might be, well, we think so. We have not yet seen
the detailed proposals from the Commission for the negotiating
mandate. We believe it passed through the Commission last Wednesday.
They will not send it to us until it has been translated and sent
to the Council and so on, and we do not have the resources to
steal a copy that most large organisations do, but we are encouraged
by the words that come out of Brussels, both the Commission and
the Council, but, as businessmen feeling that we are not understood
very well, we do have a constant anxiety that when these fair
words are translated into action, into instruments, into projects
and programmes, it might be still the old familiar mix, unless
we can insert ourselves in some way and say, "If you want
to encourage the private sector, we can tell you better how to
do it and we can help you do it better than any advice you might
get from your civil servants", and I speak as a career civil
servant.
Chairman: I know you
do, and thank you. That leads straight into the next question,
I think, Mrs Kingham.
Mrs Kingham
457. Yes, which is about regional integration
which we have heard a lot about during this inquiry. What do you
think the prospects for regional integration under Lomé
V, if there is one, are, and how realistic do you think the Commission's
proposals for the establishment eventually of the free trade areas
are for the ACP and what would your view on that be?
(Mr Pooley) I am pleased, Mr Chairman, that Mrs
Kingham has linked those two together because they do go together.
The prospect for good asymmetrical, or whatever it is called,
free trade areas in the longer term between Europe and regional
organisations depends very largely on how far those regional organisations
integrate and gather strength and that is one of the main reasons
why we argue for a lengthy transitional period before we have
to introduce new trade arrangements complying with WTO rules simply
so that that integration process can go on. Business is very anxious
that they should succeed because of course it gives us bigger
markets and markets which are easier to deal with and we understand
some of the problems, but the failure rate to keep up to promises
so far has been higher than the success rate. In Southern Africa,
you probably have the most promising movement. In West Africa,
it is marvellous what can be done on money or in sending troops
to Sierra Leone, but rather disappointing on what is being done
in terms of integration. In East Africa, and you will see it in
Kenya, Uganda where they have this very interesting development
with a rather feeble regional organisation which is probably failing,
but gathering strength in the sub-regional organisation between
Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. I am sure my colleagues would be willing
to answer detailed questions on that front, or to contradict me
if I have said anything wrong.
458. Do you have links as an organisation
with emerging regional bodies in these areas?
(Mr Pooley) BABA does not, but the individual
organisations do.
(Brigadier Blakey) Yes, we know that probably
the major authority trying to run West Africa integration is ECOWAS
and we do keep in close touch with their secretariat. They are
not an efficient organisation. They are really a very depressingly
difficult organisation to deal with. I would like to mention,
if I may, Mr Chairman, another regional development which is the
West African Economic and Monetary Union which is being strongly
supported by the French because it embraces largely the Francophone
countries and those countries which have a common currency, the
CFA. What their motivation for doing so is, one has to draw one's
own conclusions, but, nevertheless, the CFA, I think, has helped
as a stabilising factor and the interest of the Quai d'Orsay
in perpetuating this and indeed guaranteeing to underwrite it
even after the introduction of the European currency is interesting.
Chairman
459. Mr Buckmaster, would you like to give
us some more information on East Africa?
(Mr Buckmaster) If I could just say a few words,
yes. Eastern Africa, there is this new Eastern African Co-operation
where the aim is within a short period of time to have an East
African common market and a single external tariff. We, as an
Association, and our members wholly support this. I was in Arusha,
which is the headquarters of it, for their first annual celebrations,
and it is as new as that, last year. As an Association, we are
hosting a reception and presentation by the Executive Secretary
of the organisation and representatives from the three countries
in two weeks' time. So, as an organisation, we wholly support
African economic integration. It is essential, I think, instead
of having a market of, say, 20 million in Uganda, which is in
today's world limiting as regards the sort of investment that
could go in, if the three countries really were successful in
coming together. It would create a market of 80 million people
with a relatively similar culture and history and we would wholly
support it.
Mr Rowe
460. We heard evidence that the ACP countries
had been very firm about the fact that they wanted to be regarded
as a unit and in a sense that rather cuts across certainly the
European Union Commissioner's view, but also in a sense the regional
grouping view, and I just wondered whether you had any views on
that. It surprised me slightly that the ACP countries, where it
seems that the only thing they have in common is the fact that
they are all grouped under Lomé, apparently have now a
very strongly emerging sense of being together and I just wondered
if you saw that as a conflict or a difficulty or all right?
(Mr Pooley) I think that the request or insistence
on remaining as a unit is largely politically inspired and, as
a piece of political inspiration, it is perfectly respectable
and very understandable. The economic fact remains, however, that
the problems of the countries, such as the small islands of the
Caribbean, do not relate greatly to the problems of the small
land-locked countries of Central Africa, let alone to the tiny
islands of the Pacific, and also you have a whole range of levels
of development. So differentiated treatment so far as trade is
concerned and perhaps a carefully dosed arrangement so far as
aid is concerned would, we think, be for the best and seems to
be what the Commission is proposing by way of mandate, while retaining
politically the overall umbrella of institutions. I would say
that I was rather surprised to see even the Caribbean countries
signing up for ACP solidarity. ACP solidarity has not always been
a good thing. I have seen it used for the ACP countries to stand
solidly behind the ministers of the Sudan or of Zaire while they
lied and lied and lied, so I think one has to be a little bit
careful to avoid accepting as always being for the greater good
ACP political solidarity. It depends on how it is used.
461. The Lomé successor, do you see
it as being able to give practical assistance to the trade of
the ACP economies, certainly the ones you deal with, and I think
you have already suggested that you are not altogether happy,
but do you think that your discussions both in terms of extent
and quality with the EU or with the private sector have been satisfactory?
(Mr Pooley) Yes, I think we feel that our discussions
with our European colleagues have been wholly satisfactory and
the Business Council Europe-Africa is a revivified and now effective
institution and takes one view. We feel that our discussions with
the leadership of the Commission at the level of commissioners
and directors general and so on has gone very well and reached
a good level of understanding, but that leaves us still concerned
as to whether at the working level where most of our members deal
these fresh winds have not blown through the corridors where the
middle-ageing, middle-ranking civil servant who is used to a world
of controls, of a very specific sort of economic policy, command
economies and so on, that wind has not blown there and we are
a little worried also that the enterprise will fail because you
will have too many people not experienced in the private sector
trying to tell the private sector how to run its business.
462. So the channels really for the ACP
private sector element discussing their interests are a bit clogged?
(Mr Pooley) Yes. I recall an occasion of the private
sector putting forward an idea for an instrument, it does not
matter what it was, and the reply coming from the civil servant
of the ACP and the Commission, "Well, it is a good idea,
but it is fatally flawed because it does mean, you realise, that
it has an implication that at the end of the day public money
will go into the private sector", and the reply had to go
back, "That is not an implication; it is the whole idea",
but this for somebody who has been 25 years in the public service,
even in the UK, let alone a country just emerging from a command
economy and Marxist/Leninist economics, is a very difficult idea
to absorb and act on.
Mr Rowe: We have a
thing called the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, you may remember!
Chairman: I think
that the Committee is very encouraged that the organisations which
you represent in BABA as a whole are actually making the very
really necessary effort to begin these dialogues with the Commission
and with the civil servants in each national country of Europe
because unless the private sector becomes involved, as you say,
right at the beginning of the design of policy and of projects
and so on, they are not going to be able to play the part that
is envisaged by the White Paper put out by our Secretary of State
and which this Committee has endorsed, so I think we are very
encouraged by your evidence and particularly your very important
opening statement, Mr Pooley, which we shall study with great
care. When we are in East Africa, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, we
shall seek to see the businessmen there and seek to make certain
that we at least hear what the private enterprise frustrations
and difficulties are on the ground and, by so doing, hope that
we can help the effort to put the private enterprise where it
should be as the engine of growth and development responsible
and concerned about health and education and indeed working conditions,
about which I know a number of my Committee Members and myself
are very concerned, so thank you very much indeed.
6 Not herewith printed. Back
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