Robert Tressel’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is a classic novel written by a working class Irishman a century ago. It describes the relationship between the British working class and the owners of Industrial Revolution capital, who employ them, exploit them and abuse them with the participation of the workers themselves.

The image conjured up by the title is one of skinny men going about their work with worn trouser bottoms, ill-clothed for the weather, ill-shod for the working site and ill-fed for the labour, but being more or less resigned to their fate. The suggestion is that they are being generous to capitalism by donating their labour in return for next to nothing.

The community of labourers Tressel — real name Robert Noonan — describes is made up of people who are having it really bad but who will not listen to anyone telling them to cast off their chains and seek a better life for themselves and their families.

They refuse to acknowledge the fact they are poor, hungry, cold and sick because of the exploitative system they are serving and their only salvation lies in the system’s overthrow.

His fellow workers reject any idea that would change the status quo, principally because they know no better and the life they are living is the only life they ever knew, and, no doubt, that is the life God has ordained for them. In an argument one worker even calls opponents of the system Artful Dodgers, people who want to eat without working.

That was a time and place far away from now and here, but similarities can be found. This last week, in Marrakesh in Morocco, the ninth Africa Development Forum took place under the aegis of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) to discuss innovative ways to raise funds to finance the continent’s development.

That is to say, traditional methods such as aid no longer suffice and are at any rate infra-dig; rather let’s find avenues out of dependency by taking back what is ours and leveraging it for our development instead of giving it away. In other words, if we stop being ragged-trousered philanthropists, we can haul ourselves out of poverty and misery and wear proper trousers.

We are all aware of the fact that by neglecting industrialisation, we have become donors of jobs to other nations while our youth roam the streets hawking nonsense goods and wait to be recruited by Al Shabaab or Boko Haram.

Then there are the illicit financial flows from the continent, funds that leak out of Africa to go abroad via various devious ways, including theft, bribery and corruption by government officials, transfer pricing, waivers and unacceptable tax holidays, drug trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, counterfeiting, contraband, terrorism financing, etc.

Uneca estimates that between 1970 and 2008, Africa lost up to $1.8 trillion through these conduits.

Each year between $50 billion and $150 billion is lost through mispricing, under-invoicing of exports, over-invoicing of imports, proceeds from criminal activities and government corruption. Money laundering alone accounts for an estimated $1.6 trillion, while the illicit drug trade stands at $320 billion, and counterfeiting at $250 billion. This amount of money could run an African continental government.

It was made clear at the Marrakech meeting that the amount of money Africa loses in this fiscal haemorrhage far exceeds what the continent receives in official assistance. That means that we give more to receive less, like good ragged-trousered philanthropists of modern times.

A huge area in this is the extractive industry, including mining generally but especially in hydrocarbons, which are currently exciting Africans beyond measure with the lure of a life of ease and plenty that our stunted minds are given to imagining. A mirage.

These illicit flows mean our peoples continue to sink deeper into poverty and misery, a condition leading to unrest and conflict, while at the same time helping to kindle and sustain the unending conflicts across the continent.

It’s a dialectical relationship wherein the proceeds of crime, mainly engendered by corrupt government officials, serve to create conditions for widespread conflict involving non-government actors who need yet further illicit actions to sustain themselves.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam.

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