Private Sector Challenges African Governments On Democracy

African nations have been urged to advantage of upcoming elections in at least 15 countries to entrench democracy and create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive on the continent.

The Africa Private Sector Summit in a statement on Thursday asked governments on the continent to adopt a Charter on the Private Sector Bill of Rights.

Professor Kingsley Moghalu, the chairman, APSS Board of Directors and Advisory Board, who signed the statement described 2024 as a year of opportunity.

He said, “In Africa 15 countries, from Senegal in February to South Africa in December, will hold elections that will determine the destinies of 300 million people.

“We in the Africa Private Sector Summit (APSS) urge all African leaders and aspiring leaders to make democracy a true opportunity for prosperity for the continent’s 1.3 billion people.”

This, he said, is why we are advocating the adoption of a Charter on Private Sector Bill of Rights (PSBoR) that facilitates the emergence of an enabling environment for trade and investment in Africa, as an accompanying instrument to the existing Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) protocols, by Governments of all African countries and the African Union.

He said this will contribute to actualizing the vision of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 – The Africa We Want, thus create prosperity for Africans through intra-African trade.

Considering the potential of the AfCFTA (which has been ratified by 47 African countries as of December 2023) to lift 30 million people out of poverty and boost Africa’s income by $450 billion by 2035, the Africa Private Sector Summit believes that businesses and the private sector as the primary drivers of wealth creation, need to be empowered and enabled with a supportive environment, to get on with this natural task.

Prof. Moghalu said the primary purpose of every government in Africa’s developing countries should, therefore, be to achieve this purpose of lifting the quality of life of Africa’s peoples by enabling optimal conversion of natural resources, for a marked increase in their productive wealth.

The APSS Charter on Private Sector Bill of Rights (PSBoR), he said, outlines 24 specific rights that all governments in Africa should adopt to support businesses.