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Welcome
to AFRICABIZ, 
Welcome
to Africabiz Online Synopsis
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Dear faithful reader,
 -AFRICABIZ
editorial team is taking one month break from September 1 to September 30, 2004.
Therefore this delivery stands for two issues: N° 64/ August 15 - September
14; and N° 65/ September 15 - October 14, 2003.
FACTS,
OPINIONS AND DECISION MAKING
Click
here for the beginning of the article
During the last
international gathering at Accra,
Ghana, to finding a solution to ending the political crisis in Ivory Coast, Ouattara
and Bedie made show of complicity. They breakfast
together - surrounded with political advisers, and walk hand-in- hand to the conference
room.
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At a press conference, at the end of the meeting, Bedie declared to journalists,
amazed by the sudden show of "friendship", that he had never severed
links with Ouattara. He continued stating Ouattara was born in his home city
of Dimbokro, in the Center of Ivory Coast. Further, that Ouattara family and his
family know each over very well. In addition, he revealed that he was the "guardian" of
Ouattara in the 1970's when he arrived in Washington D.C, USA, where he, Bedie,
was Ivory Coast's ambassador to the USA.
That was a true revelation.
So, Bedie knew Ouattara is born in Ivory Coast and the son of a mother born
Ivorian. In spite of knowing that he cooked in 1993 the
Ivoirité concept to get rid of a political opponent. He did so ignoring
the sociologic
and demographic composition of Ivory Coast where at least 26% of the populations
are immigrants or sons of immigrants.
Thus, from a statement made by Bedie himself,
we now know he took a misleading decision that brought down the economy of the
country and create sociologic havoc, put an end to his power as head of state
in December 1999, and led to the split of the county on 22 September 2002.
He
believed that his opinion (Ouattara does not have a father born Ivorian) will
erase facts (Ouattara has a mother and grand parents at the mother side that are
born Ivorian).
That confusion (between his opinion and the hard fact)
was already bad enough. However, Bedie and his close political counselors made
another blunder. They took decisions that made it difficult to the Northerners
- who are in the same situation as Ouattara - to get birth certificates and identification
cards. Thus, half of the country's populations become strangers in their own country.
And what happens when people are cornered and had no alternative did happen: The
Northerners staged a rebellion on September 22, 2002 that split the countries
in two antagonistic territories.
African leaders are not the only ones
to take theirs opinions as facts and make misleading decisions. American neocons
who shaped the doctrine of war of prevention, and lobbied for Iraq's invasion by U.S. troops did so on two main opinions.
First, Saddam Hussein
is supporting Palestinians' second Intifada. So, if Saddam is toppled, they were
convinced the intifada will vanish. Second, American troops would be welcomed
with rice and flowers from Iraq' Shites community.
Anyone who is a impartial observer
of the world political scene, knows the opinions developed by the neocons do not
match with facts.
First, Palestinians launched the second
intifada in September 2000 to officially protest against the well publicized
visit made on September 28, 2000, by Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
This visit became the pretext for Palestinians instigating large scale demonstrations,
which turned to an upraise. It was a protest against the slow implementation or
the stalemate of Oslo Peace
Accord and to fight for a Palestine sovereign state. The assistance offered
by Saddam Hussein came after the intifada was launched. It does no initiated the
upraise. That is the fact.
Second, as for the supposed friendliness of
the Shites towards the occupation forces, that also do no match with the history
of Iraq whose peoples are known as "stiff neck" since ancient times
back to 5,000 years. Over ages Iraqis fought against invading forces and there
is no reason they will change now. Further, Shites do not have good memory of
trusting Americans. They remember very well how they had been abandoned to Saddam
Hussein savage retaliation when they staged a rebellion at the end of the first
Gulf war. In addition, invading forces are composed of Christians states. That
also is completely crazy. It is for Mohammedans the recollection of the Crusaders.
Neither
of the main opinions built up into arguments by neocons to wage war in Iraq turned
out as expected. Palestinians' second intifada is still going on in spite of Saddam
Hussein fall and Americans troops are right now battling defiant Shites all over
Iraq.
Further, oil price was supposed to be cut back to the "reasonable" level
of US$ 14 per barrel. Americans were sure that after the fall of Saddam Hussein,
Iraqis would not make any attempt to block the exploitation of Iraq's oils fields.
In the contrary, due to the prevailing instability and the constant sabotage
of Iraq's oil infrastructure, oil
prices are rising toward a level never reached before.
So, the neocons
misled America into hot waters in Iraq taking their own opinions as facts.
DECISIONS
SHOULD ALWAYS BE BASED ON FACTS AND NOT ON OPINIONS
Decision
making process is already a complicated matter to make it more difficult acting
on wrong and biased assumptions.
Any decision - in any line of business
- is, from the onset, already a bad decision. Whatever maybe the quantity
and quality of data gathered to reaching the decision, because there are always
unseen events that may occur during the execution of the decision. Nothing planned
by a human being ever happen as planned. There are always events beyond our control.
And one has always to take necessary steps to minimize, as far as possible, unforeseen
events. Thus the importance of relying more on facts than doctrines or staunched
opinions.
Therefore, at any level of leadership, to make sound and relatively
accurate decision, one needs hard, recent and proof checked facts and not
vague assumptions based on personal opinions or doctrine.
The management
of a company needs
quality data to tell the story. It needs the more recent data to be able to
compete on the global marketplace. Taking a crucial management decision based
on obsolete data may prove devastating to the durability of the company.
The
same apply more to a state. After decades of using false statistics about the
performance of the economy, the Soviet Union's leadership was forced to admit
the reality: The economy was not performing. That is one of the main reason for
the collapse of Soviet Empire in 1989.
State's policy makers who rely on
outdated information or take opinions that do not match with facts as decision
making assumptions are just heading for trouble. The alleged existence of Weapon
of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq is the recent best example of outdated information
used by policy makers to coin a country's foreign policy. Information is now emerging
that WMD had been destroyed by Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. Thus,
American decision makers used 12 years antiquated information!
Everyone
is entitled to his own opinions; but no one can have his own facts because facts
represent the "Reality" of events.
In other words, he who wants to
change the Reality through a distorted reasoning will not succeed. He who behaves
and acts that way is heading straight to facing - eventually - the ultimate manifestation
of the consequences inherent to the Reality.
For instance, an ill person
who refuses to acknowledge his illness (hard fact) and continue to live a careless
life, discarding doctors' recommendations and prescriptions, will soon, doubtless,
meet death halfway; when he could have save - or at least prolong his life - following
recommendations and taking prescribed medicines.
"CONTRIBUTOR'S
GUIDELINES" are
available here. We invite
you to contribute to AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE - with articles related to "How Africa Could Bridge The Developing Gap".
Many
thanks for subscribing to Africabiz. See you here on October 15, 2004.
Dr. B.M. Quenum
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| Business
Opportunities
TROPICAL ROOTS AND
TUBERS PART VIII: D- CONCLUSION ABOUT ROOTS AND TUBERS
AS ECONOMIC CATALYSTS
As per information
and data provided in
Issue 61, there is the possibility to establish in Africa 8,000 operations
to producing coarse gari flour and creating around 1,096,000 industrial jobs
in rural areas. The market value being around US$ 3.8 billion.
In addition,
coarse gari flour could be ground to fine flour of gari (granulation: 150
micron) that could be used as partial substitute to wheat flour in bakery. Here
one is talking about a market of minimum 20 million metric tons of fine gari flour
to cater for bakery business all over Africa - A market value of US$ 8 billion.
A consulting firm in Cameroon: Agro-pme
dedicated a lot of research works on the substitution of flours originating
from maize, sorghum and roots and tubers for bakery products. 40% inclusion of
fine gari f flour in replacement of wheat flour in bakery products. Ing. René
Taga, wrote an interesting article about the subject that is available
here (in French).
To summarize, the development of an industry based
on tubers and roots is one of the surest way to establish an economist catalyst
to the economy of any African country. Targeting 10% of potential market (fresh
cassava, Gari and fine Gari flour) would assure a revenue in the range of US$
800 million to US$ 1.5 billion.
Control Your Desktop
ARE YOUR DATA UP-TO-DATE?
Quality
data - good numbers developed from a large pool of analyzed firms - takes time
to develop. Financial information is available from most firms near the beginning
of each year for the prior year; Only then can data providers begin to collect,
analyze and publish reports.
As a result, detailed industry financial
analysis doesn't usually appear until 9-12 months after the end date of the analysis
itself, and then has a reasonable "shelf life" of 6-9 months. Marketing research
data should be more timely, but you should still expect it to lag by 9-15 months,
depending on the measure. If your data lags more than two years (real time, not
by sometimes misleading "publication dates"), it's time to look elsewhere.
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