Generic Ambien 10mg Pills

From a WSJ review of Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy:

Mr. Neuwirth introduces us to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a woman named Jandira who for a decade has peddled coffee and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills homemade cakes to the unlicensed vendors at São Paulo’s early-morning wholesale market for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills pirated movies. Her street-corner business, she proudly tells him, has Generic Ambien 10mg Pills enabled her to buy two cars and a house and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills to pay her children’s fees at private school. Another of Mr. Neuwirth’s sources, Chinese handbag designer Ethan Zhang, prefers to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills stay illegal. For him it’s a matter of costs and benefits: “If I want to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills get a license, then I will need a bank account and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills an office in an office building.” These are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills not people who lack the skills to survive through legal employment; they just see no Generic Ambien 10mg Pills good reason to join the legal economy.

System D is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills full of surprises. From Linda Chen, who trades counterfeit auto parts, we learn that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills China has a hierarchy of fake merchandise: The manufacturers of high-quality fakes offer guarantees and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills take back defective products, but with low-quality fakes it’s caveat emptor. Ogun Dairo buys woodchips from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a sawmill and uses them to smoke fish, for sale by street vendors; her unlicensed grill is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills in an illegal squatter settlement in Lagos, but she buys fish that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills have been imported from Europe. At the euphemistically named Guangzhou Dashatou Second Hand Trade Center, where Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Arthur Okafor obtains the pirated mobile phones that he later smuggles into Nigeria, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills cash turnover is so high that almost every (unlicensed) kiosk has a battery-powered currency counter.

The review reminds me of a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills chapter in my dissertation, in which I follow a container of secondhand clothing from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Cotonou port to the used clothes market in the Beninese city, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills from the market to the Seme border and then into Nigeria. I show the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills different regulatory regimes under which batches of the imported used clothing fall – when Generic Ambien 10mg Pills taxes get paid on them and when not, and how the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills final retailer in Lagos sometimes actually pay some form of tax on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills goods he has in his small stall on Lagos Island – even when Generic Ambien 10mg Pills secondhand clothing is not legally supposed to be imported or sold in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills country (there is a ban on the importation of secondhand clothing into Nigeria). It also reminds me of the importance of ethnography for understanding microeconomic interactions that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills eventually feed into macroeconomic figures of a country. (Try understanding why Benin would always have Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a balance of trade deficit without knowing that almost all consumer goods it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills imports ends up being smuggled into Nigeria.) Of course, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills whole idea of the informal economy itself arose from Keith Hart’s ethnographic study of urban slums in Ghana in the 1960s.

Read the review here. H/T to Bunmi Oloruntoba on Twitter.

As donations, pieces of clothing bear imprints of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills aspirations of their donors, and as purchased commodities, they are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills invested with the desires of their consumers. This article describes a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills particular configuration of the international trade in secondhand clothing. The trade links Western homes with West Africans families in an Generic Ambien 10mg Pills intricate web; its history also shows a relationship between West Africans who Generic Ambien 10mg Pills claim to be of Jewish descent and Jewish secondhand clothing merchants.

“The Jews of Africa”
One of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills most remarkable things about the West African secondhand clothing trade is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills that it is controlled, almost in its entirety, by Igbo traders. The Igbo are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a Nigerian ethnic group whose members sometimes claim to be of Jewish descent. There is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills probably no better person to guide one through this tradition of Igbo origin than Generic Ambien 10mg Pills one of the most prolific and respected Igbo historians, Adiele Afigbo, who Generic Ambien 10mg Pills writes[i]:

‘The claim to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Hebrew origin is the one of which we have the earliest mention, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills that in the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, an Igbo ex-slave who Generic Ambien 10mg Pills wrote in 1789. Early in this century [twentieth century] the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Rev. G.T. Basden saw a very close resemblance between Igbo culture and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Jewish culture without quite saying the Igbo were of Jewish descent. But such was his form of words that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the hasty would draw that conclusion. Then later, probably in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills 1950s, one Ike Akwelumo asserted in his pamphlet The Origin of the Ibos that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Igbo were a branch of the Jews. According to him the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills name “Ibo,” used for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the people during the colonial period, was a contraction of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills word “Hebrew.” At some intermediate stage, he says, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills word had been contracted to Heebo.’

Although not many Igbo historians take this too seriously – Adiele Afigbo himself seriously contests this story – it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills sometimes comes up in daily conversations. For instance, it is not uncommon for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills one to hear, during a normal conversation with everyday Igbo people, that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills they are the Jews of Africa because they are very famous as migrants, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills because they are successful businessmen. This is particularly interesting in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills case of secondhand clothing because the trade combines migration with business success; and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills their first regular suppliers were Jewish merchants.

Jews and secondhand clothing
In many parts of Europe, from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the late Middle Ages, the trade in secondhand clothing was one of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills very few economic activities in which Jews were engaged. This was primarily because then, trade and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills craft were tightly regulated by guilds, and owing to pervasive religious prejudice against Jews, they were excluded from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills guild membership. Only few marginal commercial activities were open to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills them. One of them was pawnbroking; the other was the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills trade in secondhand goods (including clothing)[ii].

In England, between the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills seventeenth and early nineteenth century, the trade was known as a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Jewish trade. In the mornings, Jewish clothes traders would walk through the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills streets of middle-class and aristocratic areas of London, shouting “Old Clothes”, to attract the attention of servants who had their masters’ cast-offs to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills sell. After a successful morning, they would go back to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a part of the city called Rag Fair, where they would sell to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills other Jewish secondhand clothing dealers who would repair the garments for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills resale in their shops. Some contemporary writers claim that in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills mid-eighteenth century, there were as many as two thousand Jewish Old Clothes men in London alone[iii].

In the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills nineteenth century New York, immigrant Jews of Eastern European origin would walk through the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills streets shouting “Rags, Bones, Bottles![iv]” Some of them later introduced the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills trade to other parts of the United States. By the twentieth century, second generation migrants still operated some of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills family businesses that were founded then. Some of these were the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills first regular suppliers of secondhand clothing to Igbo importers in West Africa.

The Igbo and secondhand clothing
The Igbo first became involved in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills secondhand clothing trade in the 1940s, when they bought Army surplus stock during and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills after the Second World War. The clothing was obtained from ships that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills were berthed in Port Harcourt, part of the now infamous Niger Delta region. By the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills 1950s, many of the traders started importing secondhand clothing directly from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the New York-based Jewish merchants. They would get unsorted, bundled, shipments of secondhand clothing – the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills finesse that now characterizes the packaging was to come later. From the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills importers, fellow Igbo retailers would buy collections of secondhand clothing, which they would retail in other parts of Nigeria. Later, in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills early 1960s, Igbo traders started re-exporting secondhand clothing from Nigeria to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills other parts of West Africa. Destination countries included Benin, Togo, Ghana and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Cameroon.

Today, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills main secondhand clothing markets in Cotonou and Lome, the capitals of Benin Republic and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Togo respectively, are dominated and controlled by Igbo traders. Some of them are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills importers, who have established and maintained trading connections with European and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills American secondhand clothing firms; others are retailers, who sell bales of secondhand clothing to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills other Igbo traders who would then retail pieces of secondhand clothing.  In the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills case of Benin Republic, which borders Nigeria, most of their customers cross the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills border from Nigeria into Benin. Since the 1970s, the importation of secondhand clothing has Generic Ambien 10mg Pills been banned in Nigeria. Therefore, almost all the pieces of secondhand clothing one would find in Nigeria is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills smuggled from Benin.

Western cast-offs meet West African desires
A normal day of cloth shopping for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills many Lagos families involves a trip to the Yaba market, one of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills numerous secondhand clothing markets in the city. Stalls made of wood and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills corrugated iron sheets house rows and bundles of secondhand clothing. Many of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills items of clothing are carefully laundered and hung on racks; others are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills piled on the floor of the stalls. In front of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills stalls stand young men and women, with pieces of secondhand clothing hangers in hand, calling on potential customers to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills come and patronize their wares. Nearby, in another section of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills market, there are stalls where rucksacks, small purses and all sorts of bags are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills sold. In still another section, shoes of varying life stages are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills either paired up in neat rows or are stacked together. Like the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills clothing, the ones that are neatly set in rows are usually of better quality than Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the ones in stacks. In many cases, they are designer labels: this Generic Ambien 10mg Pills market is one place where one can pick up a Hugo Boss shirt – ‘original’, as one is often reminded by the vendors – for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills less than a fraction of what it would cost in a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills shop in a European city. But more often than not, they are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills simply imported Western cast-offs.

In most cases, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills pieces of clothing found in the market in Lagos start their journey in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills homes of European and American families. In Germany, items of clothing that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills are no longer wanted by their owners are packed into bags that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills are then deposited into roadside boxes. From there, they are taken to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills warehouses where they will be cleaned and sorted. Some of them are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills sold in the secondhand clothing shops that dot the streets of many German cities; but a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills large percentage are baled and exported to developing countries.

In Britain, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills competition for its trade is fierce. Quite a number of charity organizations make a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills lot of their running cost from donations of secondhand clothing. Some rely on walk-ins – whereby donors of secondhand clothing take their pieces of clothing into a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills charity store. Needless to say, not all of the clothing that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is taken into a charity shop is sold there. A large percentage end up being sold off to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills those who are described in the textile recycling industry as “commercial textile recyclers”. These are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills commercial organizations that collect, sort, bale and export secondhand clothing.

Some charities actually give franchise to “charity fundraisers”. These organizations collect secondhand clothing on behalf of charities, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills pay the charities a certain percentage of the value of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills collection. The most sophisticated charities make collections by themselves and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills have their own sorting and exporting firms. They sell some of their collections – usually a relatively small quantity – in their shops. The rest is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills sent to their processing factories, where the pieces of clothing are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills packed together and baled for exportation. Commercial textile recyclers, who buy clothing that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills charities that do not have their own sorting firms cannot sell in their shops, also make collections at areas where Generic Ambien 10mg Pills English municipalities designate as recycling areas. Bales of secondhand clothing are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills exported to East European, South Asian and African countries.

The international trade in secondhand clothing connects Western families with their counterparts in developing countries in an Generic Ambien 10mg Pills intricate web of desire and aspiration. Most of the time, on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills part of the Westerner, this takes the form of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills desire to help people who are less fortunate. Some assume that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills these less fortunate people are poor people in the country of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills donors. Others assume that the less fortunate people are citizens in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills developing world. Most people do not know that there is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills an active international trade in secondhand clothing. In my view, this Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is a more sustainable and fruitful relationship than one of pure donation, where Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the consumers simple receive the clothing for free.

As it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is at the moment, there is a wide network of traders that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is built around donated secondhand clothing. This network includes different actors, ranging from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills family-owned commercial textile recycling firms to small secondhand clothing importing companies, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills extending to individually-owned secondhand clothing stalls. The industry provides a livelihood for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills them, one that would not exist if the clothing were given for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills free. Besides, it is definitely more dignified to purchase what one needs than Generic Ambien 10mg Pills to receive it as handout.

The clothing also satisfies the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills clothing desires of consumers. The reasons for this are not limited to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills affordability. To be sure, there are a lot of people who Generic Ambien 10mg Pills consume secondhand clothing because they cannot afford to buy new clothing. There are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills however others who go to shop for secondhand clothing because they believe that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills this is where they can find ‘original’ designers label. In a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills country like Nigeria, where most of the ready-made clothing is imported from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills China, a lot of what is available in the market are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills cheap Chinese knock-offs. Many people therefore prefer to buy designer labels from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills secondhand clothing shops because they can be sure that what they obtain there are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills original and good quality clothing. One could call them slaves of fashion, in search of authenticity – much like Americans and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Europeans who go to secondhand clothing stores to buy vintage clothing.

[ii] Werner J. Cahnman, ‘Socio-Economic Causes of Antisemitism’, Social Problems, 5 (1957), 21-29.

[iii] Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Georgian England, 1714-1830: Tradition and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Change in a Liberal Society (University of Michigan Press, 1999).

[iv] Hanna Rose Shell and Vanessa Bertozzi, Secondhand (Pepe) Documentary, 2007.

This article was originally written for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the journal of the Jewish Museum in Berlin

Off to Basel tomorrow for an African Borderlands Research Network conference. As part of a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills panel on a comparative study of cross-border trade networks in Africa, I will be Generic Ambien 10mg Pills presenting a paper titled “Benin-Nigeria secondhand clothing cross-border trade in historical perspective”. The abstract:

Today, Benin Republic is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the main supplier of secondhand clothing to Nigeria, a country in which the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills importation of secondhand clothing is banned. Igbo traders, who form a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills transnational trade network that spans the eastern part of the West African coast and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills that extends to Europe and North America, dominate the import and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills retail trade in the commodity in Benin Republic. This is a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills network that could be described – depending on the side from which one chooses to look at it – either as an agent of development or as a predator on the state’s resources. The exercise here is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills to move beyond those arguments and to show the current configurations of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills trade network as it has responded to a changing global political and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills economic landscape, and as it has been modified by the changes in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills political economy of the West African countries that it spans.

For more on the conference [pdf].

1. On the Islamic origins of the World Trade Centre architecture

2. What percentage of salary increase would satisfy Indian lawmakers? (This is not a tip for Nigerian lawmakers.)

3. On the importance of field research for development economics (Almost there, economists, almost there.)

4. What about the foreskin? (On male circumcision.)

5. A Beninese Ponzi scheme that may cost a presidency

Just learnt of him through NPR’s A Blog Supreme. A short bio:

Loueke was born in Benin, studied music in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Ivory Coast as a teenager, did further jazz-specific training in Paris for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills five years and finally ended up with a Berklee scholarship. In Boston, he met his trio: Swedish bassist Massimo Biolcati, who Generic Ambien 10mg Pills has an Italian name, and drummer Ferenc Nemeth, who grew up in a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills small town in Hungary. On Mwaliko, he also collaborates with Angelique Kidjo — also from Benin — and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Congolese-born Richard Bona. Loueke uses his jazz skills, forged in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills crucibles of conservatories, to revisit songs and ideas he learned back in Cotonou. Obversely, some of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills unique techniques he practices — even on the album’s unabashedly “jazz” tunes — were inspired by sounds he remembers from his childhood.

Check out this video of a live performance with Herbie Hancock

In a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills group interview in September, 18 disgruntled truck drivers in Cotonou, Benin, vented their frustrations to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills two Trade Hub consultants: driving freely from Cotonou to Ouagadougou was impossible without harassment, they said. They sometimes spend three days at borders where Generic Ambien 10mg Pills customs officials hold up paper work when they refuse to pay bribes; meanwhile, their clients in importing countries wait impatiently to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills receive the goods.
At the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills borders and checkpoints where unofficial fees were demanded, they do not receive receipts to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills prove payment later to their clients. Like many other transport companies in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills region, they bear costs and lose income due to unpredictable expenses on West African roads and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills borders.

“Even when Generic Ambien 10mg Pills you have all the paperwork, it is not always taken into account,” one said. “There is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills not a lot of documentation required really, but there are too many unnecessary delays.

“Laws are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills different from country to country and the fees are exceptionally high. There is really no free movement across West Africa.”

But in the agreements made between ECOWAS countries, that is not supposed to be so.

What is described in the article is the official side – which means that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills it concerns goods that would normally be allowed to enter into countries, either because they originate 100% from a country within the Community (mostly agricultural produce, livestock, etc) or because some form of value (officially, it should be at least 30% of the value of the product) is added in one of the countries.

Then there is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the informal type. Nigeria, for instance, imposes bans on, well, almost everything that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is of interest to someone of power in Nigeria. But that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills does not stop the importation of those things. Importers simply divert the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills trade to Benin and then smuggle them from Benin to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Nigeria. Rice is a particular case in point. In 2007, for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills instance, a Nigerian newspaper reports that the total import duty on rice in Nigeria came to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills about 100%, while in Benin it was 38%. In the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills same year, it was estimated that about 2,000 tonnes of rice was re-exported (smuggled) from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Benin into Nigeria per day. If you are a smart importer you Generic Ambien 10mg Pills simply divert your rice to Benin, pay the import duty – and those guys are pretty well organised so you WILL pay the duty - and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills then smuggle it into Nigeria. While I was researching these issues in Cotonou in 2008, someone mentioned that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills she could almost believe that the Beninese government bribes Nigeria to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills prohibit the importation of some goods into the country so that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Benin can make some money off it.

The long and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills short of the story is: as long as there are these kinds of trade policy disparities within the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills region, regional integration is going to be something they periodically pay lip service to.

Back to the West Africa Trade Hub article:

“Making regional integration a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills reality requires harmonization of trade policies and practices to eliminate uncertainty for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills traders and customs officials at borders,” said Trade Hub Business Environment Advisor Lori Brock. “There is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a price to pay when a region fails to come together following agreements, regardless of language or Generic Ambien 10mg Pills currency barriers.”

H/T to Osize

A news story on crossing from Benin to Nigeria, through the Seme border:

“At every half kilometre, you Generic Ambien 10mg Pills encounter checkpoints manned by all sorts of agencies. This is a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills real problem to the sub-region,” he said. “On a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills bad day, from the Seme border down to Lagos, you Generic Ambien 10mg Pills meet over 70 checkpoints and they all ask the same thing, ‘what do you have for us’. They are all unlawful.

Although the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills report mentions the list of prohibited items, it does not say that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the real reason that the border is that policed is because of that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills list itself. I have written somewhere else that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Nigerian state should consider other measures apart from outright prohibition. As long as the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills list of prohibited items is long, that border, as well as the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills road that runs from the border to Lagos, is going to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills remain as policed – either legally or illegally – as it is at the current moment.

I spent most of last year travelling the road.

After 10 months in West Africa (Nigeria, Bénin, Togo), I am back in Germany. I did not have Generic Ambien 10mg Pills much time for blogging during the 10 months cos I was moving around a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills lot, cos I did not have very reliable internet connection, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills cos my work did not allow me to spend so much time on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills internet. Looking back at the blogging I did in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills 10 months I sometimes ask myself how I even had Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the time to do it. So, I hope things will improve on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills blogging end, and that my work in Deutschland will proceed well. Great thanks to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Oz, Solomonsydelle, Waffarian, Nneoma, and every other person who Generic Ambien 10mg Pills checked on me, but whose names I cannot remember at the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills moment. I appreciate your care and concern.

And to the general blogging community, you will hear from me soon.

This is an article I first read on Nigeria Village Square, but later found out that it was originally from ocnus.net. I thought to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills post it here for comments. I am not an expert on CFA, but I am Generic Ambien 10mg Pills trying to learn as much as possible about it. So I’m waiting for your comments!

The Economic And Political Effects Of The CFA Zone
By Dr Gary K Busch

One of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills most important influences in the economic and political life of African states which were formerly French colonies is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the impact of a common currency; the Communuate Financiere de l’Afrique (‘CFA’) franc. There are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills actually two separate CFA francs in circulation. The first is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills that of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) which comprises eight West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Togo. The second is that of the Central African Economic and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Monetary Community (CEMAC) which comprises six Central African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon), This division corresponds to the pre-colonial AOF (Afrique Occidentale Française) and the AEF (Afrique Équatoriale Française), with the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills exception that Guinea-Bissau was formerly Portuguese and Equatorial Guinea Spanish).

Each of these two groups issues its own CFA franc. The WAEMU CFA franc is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills issued by the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) and the CEMAC CFA franc is issued by the BEAC (Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale). These currencies were originally both pegged at 100 CFA for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills each French franc but, after France joined the European Community’s Euro zone at a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills fixed rate of 6.65957 French francs to one Euro, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills CFA rate to the Euro was fixed at CFA 665,957 to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills each Euro, maintaining the 100 to 1 ratio. It is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills important to note that it is the responsibility of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Treasury to guarantee the convertibility of the CFA to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Euro.

The monetary policy governing such a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills diverse aggregation of countries is uncomplicated because it is, in fact, operated by the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Treasury, without reference to the central fiscal authorities of any of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills WAEMU or the CEMAC. Under the terms of the agreement which set up these banks and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the CFA the Central Bank of each African country is obliged to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills keep at least 65% of its foreign exchange reserves in an “operations account” held at the French Treasury, as well as another 20% to cover financial liabilities.

The CFA central banks also impose a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills cap on credit extended to each member country equivalent to 20% of that country’s public revenue in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills preceding year. Even though the BEAC and the BCEAO have an Generic Ambien 10mg Pills overdraft facility with the French Treasury, the drawdowns on those overdraft facilities are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills subject to the consent of the French Treasury. The final say is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills that of the French Treasury which has invested the foreign reserves of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills African countries in its own name on the Paris Bourse.

In short, more than 80% of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills foreign reserves of these African countries are deposited in the “operations accounts” controlled by the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Treasury. The two CFA banks are African in name, but have Generic Ambien 10mg Pills no monetary policies of their own. The countries themselves do not know, nor are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills they told, how much of the pool of foreign reserves held by the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Treasury belongs to them as a group or individually. The earnings of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills investment of these funds in the French Treasury pool are supposed to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills be added to the pool but no accounting is given to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills either the banks or the countries of the details of any such changes. The limited group of high officials in the French Treasury who have knowledge of the amounts in the “operations accounts”, where Generic Ambien 10mg Pills these funds are invested; whether there is a profit on these investments; are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills prohibited from disclosing any of this information to the CFA banks or Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the central banks of the African states.

This makes it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills impossible for African members to regulate their own monetary policies. The most inefficient and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills wasteful countries are able to use the foreign reserves of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills more prudent countries without any meaningful intervention by the wealthier and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills more successful countries. The fact that as the French GDP grows and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the parity of the Euro to the dollar (the main currency of international trade) appreciates there is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the constant danger that the CFA franc may be fixed at too high an Generic Ambien 10mg Pills exchange rate. This dampens the growth in trade between Africa and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the rest of the world and allows other countries, especially in Asia, to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills use their more flexible exchange rates to gain market share, supplanting the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Africans.

The creation and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills maintenance of the French domination of the francophone African economies is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the product of a long period of French colonialism and the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills learned dependence of the African states. For most of francophone Africa there is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills only limited power allowed to their central banks. These are economies whose vulnerability to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills an increasingly globalised economy is increasing daily. There can be no Generic Ambien 10mg Pills trade policy without reference to currency; there can be no investment without reference to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills reserves. The politicians and parties elected to promote growth, reform, changes in trade and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills fiscal policies are made irrelevant except with the consent of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Treasury which rations their funds. There are many who object to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the continuation of this system. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal has Generic Ambien 10mg Pills stated this very clearly “The African people’s money stacked in France must be Generic Ambien 10mg Pills returned to Africa in order to benefit the economies of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills BCEAO member states. One cannot have billions and billions placed on foreign stock markets and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills at the same time say that one is poor, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills then go beg for money.”

How Did This Happen?

This system of dependence is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a direct result of the colonial policies of the French Government. In the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills immediate post-war period after the signing of the Bretton Woods Agreement in July 1944 the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French economy urgently needed to recover. To assist in this process it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills set up the first CFA amongst its African colonies to guarantee a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills captive market for its goods. The principal decision which resulted from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Bretton Woods Agreement was the abandonment of the Gold Standard. In short, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills new system gave a dominant place to the dollar. The other currencies saw their exchange rate indexed to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the dollar. The reserves of the European central banks at that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills time consisted of currencies of dubious post-war value and gold which had Generic Ambien 10mg Pills been de-pegged from the fluctuations of the currency. For this reason France needed the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills currencies of its colonies to support its competitiveness with its American and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills British competitors. De Gaulle and his main economic advisor, Pierre Mendès France met with some African leaders and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills developed a Colonial Pact which would enshrine this is in a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills treaty (with both public and secret clauses). The genius behind this was Jacques Foccart, France’s “Mister Africa”.

Decolonization south of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Sahara did not happen as de Gaulle had intended. He had Generic Ambien 10mg Pills wanted a Franco-African Community that stopped short of total independence. But when Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Sekou Toure’s Guinea voted “no” in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills 1958 referendum on that Community, the idea was effectively dead. Guinea was cast into outer darkness because of its decision and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a Community of sorts came into existence, but the call of full independence proved too strong to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills resist.

Not really having planned for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills it, in 1960 de Gaulle had to improvise structures for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills a collection of small newly independent states, each with a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills flag, an anthem, and a seat at the UN, but often with precious little else. It was here that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Foccart came to play an essential role, that of architect of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills series of Cooperation accords with each new state in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills sectors of finance and economy, culture and education, and the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills military. There were initially eleven countries involved: Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Niger, Chad, Gabon, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Madagascar. Togo and Cameroon, former UN Trust Territories, were also co-opted into the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills club. So, too, later on, were Mall and the former Belgian territories (Ruanda-Urundi, now Rwanda and Burundi, and Congo-Kinshasa), some of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills ex-Portuguese territories, and Comoros and Djibouti, which had also been under French rule for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills many years but became independent in the 1970s. The whole ensemble was put under a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills new Ministry of Cooperation, created in 1961, separate from the Ministry of Overseas Departments and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Territories (known as the DOM-TOM) that had previously run them all.

The key to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills all this was the agreement signed between France and its newly-liberated African colonies which locked these colonies into the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills economic and military embrace of France. This Colonial Pact not only created the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills institution of the CFA franc, it created a legal mechanism under which France obtained a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills special place in the political and economic life of its colonies.

The Pacte Coloniale Agreement enshrined a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills special preference for France in the political, commercial and defence processes in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills African countries. On defence it agreed two types of continuing contact. The first was the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills open agreement on military co-operation or Technical Military Aid (AMT) agreements, which weren’t legally binding, and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills could be suspended according to the circumstances. They covered education, training of servicemen and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills African security forces. The second type, secret and binding, were defense agreements supervised and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills implemented by the French Ministry of Defense, which served as a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills legal basis for French interventions. These agreements allowed France to have Generic Ambien 10mg Pills predeployed troops in Africa; in other words, French army units present permanently and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills by rotation in bases and military facilities in Africa; run entirely by the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French.

According to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Annex II of the Defence Agreement signed between the governments of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Republic, the Republic of Ivory Coast, the Republic of Dahomey and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the Republic of Niger on 24 April 1961, France has priority in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills acquisition of those “raw materials classified as strategic.” In fact, according to article 2 of the agreement, “the French Republic regularly informs the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the other two) of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills policy that it intends to follow concerning strategic raw materials and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills products, taking into account the general needs of defence, the evolution of resources and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the situation of the world market.”

According to article 3, “the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the other two) inform the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French Republic of the policy they intend to follow concerning strategic raw materials and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills products and the measures that they propose to take to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills implement this policy.” And to conclude, article 5: “Concerning these same products, the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the two others) for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills defence needs, reserve them in priority for sale to the French Republic, after having satisfied the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills needs of internal consumption, and they will import what they need in priority from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills it.” The reciprocity between the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills signatories was not a bargain between equals, but reflected the actual dominance of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills colonial power that had, in the case of these countries, organised “independence” a few months previously (in August 1960).

In summary, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills colonial pact maintained the French control over the economies of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills African states; it took possession of their foreign currency reserves; it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills controlled the strategic raw materials of the country; it stationed troops in the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills country with the right of free passage; it demanded that all military equipment be Generic Ambien 10mg Pills acquired from France; it took over the training of the police and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills army; it required that French businesses be allowed to maintain monopoly enterprises in key areas (water, electricity, ports, transport, energy, etc.). France not only set limits on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills imports of a range of items from outside the franc zone but also set minimum quantities of imports from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills France. These treaties are still in force and operational.

The creation of such a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills system was not the preserve of the French National Assembly or Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the result of any democratic process. It was the result of policies conducted by a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills small group of people in the President’s office, the ‘African Cell’, initially led by Foccart. For the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills past half-century, the secretive and powerful “African Cell” has overseen France’s strategic interests in Africa, holding sway over a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills wide swath of former French colonies. Acting as a general command, the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Cell uses France’s military as a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills hammer to install leaders it deems friendly to French interests. In return, these countries give French industries first crack at their oil and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills other natural resources. Sidestepping traditional diplomatic channels, the Cell reports only to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills one person: the president. The Cell’s close ties to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills oil giant Elf Aquitaine, where top executives were jailed on corruption charges, was a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills source of embarrassment. And a former Cell chief has now been Generic Ambien 10mg Pills convicted of charges related to arms trafficking to Angola. These highly contentious policy issues never came before any of France’s democratically-elected bodies. African policy is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the personal fiefdom of the President’s office.

This was true for De Gaulle, Mitterand, Giscard D’Estaing and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Chirac. Sarkozy apparently has no contacts or ambitions in this Generic Ambien 10mg Pills field and has left Chirac’s Cell in place.

The Impact of the Colonial Pact

Some of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills consequences for the Africa countries of the continuation of a policy of dependence are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills obvious – lack of competitive options; dependence on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French economy; dependence on the French military; and the open-door policy for Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French private enterprise. However, there are more subtle differences which arise.

The French companies in francophone Africa, by virtue of their protected monopolistic or Generic Ambien 10mg Pills oligarchic status, contribute a substantial share of the GDP of these countries. More importantly, however, they are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills often the single largest group of taxpayers. In many of these countries the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French corporations pay over 50% of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills national tax revenues collected. This gives them a unique status. Quite frequently the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills French say that without the French companies the economy of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills African state will collapse. When coupled with the inability of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills country to access its reserves it undoubtedly true. However, it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills doesn’t follow that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills private corporations from other countries, like the U.S. or China, would not contribute equally. This is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills one reason that the French are so concerned with allowing competition into the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills market place.

Another aspect of this Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is the inability of these francophone countries to collect taxes from Generic Ambien 10mg Pills its ordinary citizens. In a country like the Ivory Coast which has Generic Ambien 10mg Pills been divided for a number of years between the rebel North and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the loyalist South, tax collections in the rebel regions have been Generic Ambien 10mg Pills impossible. The rebels have waxed fat on taxes and fees imposed on their captive populations and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the sale of stolen goods from their regions. They do not want to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills disarm because it will have a deleterious economic effect on them, not just a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills political one.

The lack of a Generic Ambien 10mg Pills citizenry paying taxes breeds a gulf between the government and the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills citizens; mutual responsibility is missing in the equation. It is the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills job of the National Assembly to legislate for programs based on the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills supply of revenue to the state, but if there are insufficient revenues the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills National Assembly is frustrated in its role. If 80% of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills funds go to France as part of the CFA franc project there is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills little left for the ministers and the National Assembly to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills allocate for social programs.

In many of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills francophone countries, suffering under conditions of drought, lack of food; lack of health care; it Generic Ambien 10mg Pills is only French ‘aid’ to the national treasuries that sustains them. This ‘aid’ is often their own money which the French have shepherded for them.

There are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills many in Africa who have seen and understood the problem of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills CFA franc and the Colonial Pact. Mamadou Koulibaly, the President of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills National Assembly in the Ivory Coast has been an outspoken critic of the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Colonial Pact and the dominance of the CFA franc. He has Generic Ambien 10mg Pills written an excellent book on the subject and gives speeches and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills interviews on the subject regularly. The problem is that very few people understand the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills fundamental iniquity of this French system; including many Africans.

If African nations are Generic Ambien 10mg Pills to achieve growth and participate fully in the opportunities of globalisation they must be Generic Ambien 10mg Pills freed from the fetters of this colonial albatross. In order to Generic Ambien 10mg Pills attract additional direct investment in the economies, as opposed to just portfolio investment this Generic Ambien 10mg Pills situation must be changed. In the words of President Koulibaly, “In Africa we do not need alms, our problem is Generic Ambien 10mg Pills not due to a lack of money. My conviction is that Generic Ambien 10mg Pills we must first of all clearly state our ownership rights over our own land and Generic Ambien 10mg Pills the resources in our soil which were taken away by the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills colonialists when they conquered our countries, and still be taken away through the Generic Ambien 10mg Pills Colonial Pact”.