Local manufacturing must be supported to flourish

Editor, RE: “Ban on cagua: why Africa needs focused, resilient leaders” (The New Times, June 23). In the 70’s and 80’s Kenya had a vibrant textile industry which employed 5,000,000 Kenyans (even though it was owned by foreigners). Today, the remaining (I say leftover) of that industry only employs less than 5,000 people. It suffered the same fate as the East African Airways which died by the end of the 70’s. Today, we start with used second-hand clothes, the second frontier should be to require every mining and other resources-extraction company to set plants and refine the minerals here on the continent up to 100% purity before export; from iron, casterite, col tan, gold ores to Uranium ores and from natural gas, black gold to helium gas. This step should be followed by requiring the same company to set shop here on the continent as well and thus shifting the trading centers of such commodities to Africa. If this can happen, Africa will develop, in all spheres, in no time and it will regain its independence. But the crucial question is: Does Africa have leaders of such a high caliber who can enact and implement such far reaching decisions? Hambavu *************************** You can never go wrong by supporting local manufacturing. Too many African countries have been exporting raw materials and importing them in the way of finished goods for too long. It’s good to see an African leader (President Paul Kagame) refusing to export these badly needed jobs and promote manufacturing. How hard can it be to make a shirt, a plastic bucket or a bathroom sink? Kaufman

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Local manufacturing must be supported to flourish