ABSTRACT
In Architects of Poverty (2009), Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of the former President of South Africa, asks why Africans remain so poor compared with the rest of the world. He blames African political elites which from the days of slavery have enriched themselves at the expense of their own people by serving the interests of foreign powers whose only concern is to exploit their countries’ human and natural resources. National politicians today continue this process of accumulation without development throughout Africa. He includes South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) government in this critique, claiming that Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), the enrichment of a few black individuals with the right political connections, is similarly a pay-off by the white-controlled corporations of the ‘Minerals-Energy Complex’ (Fine and Rustomjee, 1996) for adopting economic policies favourable to their interests at the expense of those of the black masses.
