The CEO Roundtable of Tanzania has criticised proponents of ‘rising African economic growth’, saying they are giving unjustifiable reasons because African countries are still in a marginal position of the global economy.

The forum’s chairman Ali Mufuruki said those who praise Africa for robust economic growth under the slogan ‘Africa is rising’ are just creating an illusion because Africa is still facing problems such as alarmingly low education levels, lack of access to reliable energy, inefficient transport and logistics infrastructure to encourage trade, inadequate technological advancements for maximising agricultural production and depletion of Africa’s biodiversity at the hands of corruption.

The members of CEO Roundtable had an opportunity of contributing to the speech delivered by Mr Mufuruki at an international forum (TeDxEuston stage) on Friday in London.

“Studies show that in most African countries, levels of poverty have hardly changed the ‘rising’ years and inequality, the gap between the poor and the rich has widened,” said Mr Mufuruki. According to him, Tanzania and other African countries do not know the real value of their resources they’re are sitting on, including the emerging gas and oil bonanza.

“The sabotage of African economies by Africans is on the rise, be it through direct theft. Corruption or wars that never seem to end, our capacity to destroy our treasures and manpower is growing faster than our capacity to build them.”

Mr Mufuruki has also raised a question on the justification of Africa rising because China’s is currently growing at 8 per cent, while Africa is at between 6 and 7 per cent growth rate despite the fact that the former has more population than the sub-Saharan African countries.

The members of CEOs forum have supported his arguments calling for the government to take concrete action on fighting economic sabotage and corruption.

One of them, the executive director of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation, Mr Godfrey Simbeye, said it was a pity to glorify a GDP growth rate of 7 per cent because to have a sustainable economic growth rate Tanzania and other African nations must achieve a growth of 15 per cent.

The managing director of Rex Attorneys, Dr Alex Nguluma, supported that Tanzania and other African countries were still suffering from poor transport and communications infrastructure comparing with the emerging economies of Asian countries.