While Africa has
seemingly gained the political kingdom, it remains the ?sick man of the world?,
said Prime Minister Nahas Angula on the occasion of the Africa Child Day which
was celebrated on 16 June. Angula said poverty, civil strife, HIV/AIDS
devastation, under-development and famine remain the hallmark of African
conditions. ?In my view, the struggle for African dignity remains an unfinished
business. Africa cannot continue to be the laggard of the international
community. Africa must rise. Africa must stand up to be counted?, cried Angula.
The start toward all this should be the ?retooling, repositioning and
revitalising of the African state to be a catalyst for development. He said the
African state should ?play two over-arching roles? – that of ?service delivery
and social transformation?. Angula said in its role as an agent of service
delivery, the state should ensure good governance, law and order, provision of
public good, welfarist redistribution and infrastructure development, an
instrument of transformation and a dynamic transformation that intervenes and
supports endogenous entrepreneurial development. The Prime Minister used South
Korea and Taiwan as examples of states that where able to carry out relatively
massive interventions in institutional structures and thus achieve a dynamic
social transformation in their economies. He said the two countries initiated
rapid and far-reaching land reforms before the take-off of their economies. ?All
agricultural land above a low ceiling was compulsorily acquired by the state at
a price much below the market price and re-distributed to tenants at low prices.
The transfer of natural resources, including land, to emerging endogenous
capitalists is one way in which a dynamic social transformational state could
intervene in favour of growth and development?. He added that it is his
?contention that the African state should build up its transformation capacities
in order to push the economy into a capitalist transition through institutional
engineering?.