Libya undecided on future of African investments
Libya's new government is still taking stock of extensive investments made in Africa by the former regime of Muammar Gaddafi before deciding on what it should do next.
Mohammed Abdul Aziz, Libya's deputy foreign minister, admitted on Thursday that the National Transitional Council (NTC) does not yet know the exact extent of Libyan investments on the continent.
"We don't have a figure yet of what we lost and what is still there," he told the Pan-African news agency ahead of the AU summit in Addis Ababa, which starts on Sunday. "We like to know the viability of these investments, what kind of impacts they could have for us and for the local community where we are investing
to my mind, we cannot plan for the future before making our proper assessment."
Under Gaddafi, Libya invested its oil wealth mostly in Europe but also in Africa, the Middle East and the US. Some of Libya's major investments in Africa are managed by the $65bn Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) through a $5bn fund known as the Libyan African Investment Portfolio (LAP).
full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jan/27/libya-undecided-future-african-investments
Fool Count
(1,230 posts)Wait until those Quisling stooges get their hands on that dough. Then you'll see what real stealing
looks like.
nanabugg
(2,198 posts)sub-Sahara Africa which the west and its allies among the Arab states would just as soon starve to death. The wealth there is enormous and Qaddafi had always tried to keep the wealth of Africa for Africans. Hence...no more Qaddafi.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)His African investments were most likely for political purposes.
Paul E Ester
(952 posts)Here is documentation how he stole billions from the banksters and a european telecoms.
"It was Gaddafi's Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times - connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas.
It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.
An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn't finance such a project? But the problem remained - how can slaves, seeking to free themselves from their master's exploitation ask the master's help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western 'benefactors' with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million - and that's how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.
China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.
This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi's Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent."
http://allafrica.com/stories/201104150792.html