Erishikor wrote:Ghion, I beg to differ. Although I admire and support PIA's idea of 'self-reliance', I believe he took it to the extreme and his priority is really, really screwed/has been screwed for the last 7-8 years.
I'm all for 'NO to foreign' aid, although people might suffer in short term, in the long term it will be benefical. Aside, from all the the killing , beating, jailing and intemidation of the entire population; from economical aspect, I don't see why they don't allow Eritreans businessmen/women to invest in Eritrea? If they allow this, it would be adequate enough to feed our people and even boost our economy. In addition, we may not even need a foreign aid since Eri is a small country. Denying of westerners from investing in the country? That I can understand, but Eritreans? Hell, NO! It really sucks people have to go through this after all the sacrifices that have been made, for what?[/b]
I used to think the same way as I read your comments, until I actually listened to a distinguished economists saying that, foreign investment in Africa without adequate infrastructure in place is nothing short of exploitation, for the foreign firms will have to bring in foreign banks to finance the infrastructure development vital to sustain their investments, drowning the country into huge debt, unable to pay back.
Since external debt is the main cause for all the social and economic problems in Africa, it would be a cardinal error for the new African nations like Eritrea to allow themselves get into a predicament where their future generation will have to bleed to death paying off debts incurred by the current generation. If they themselves build the infrastructure today (however long it will take them), they're better-off in the long term. Rome wasn't built in a day. As the Tigrigna saying goes: ሸውዓተ ዓመት ከይመሃሩ ምሉእ መዋእሎም ይድንቁሩ።
