Essay Database

Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire Economic Development in Post-Independent Africa By: Cipriano Andrade The situation in Zaire (today The Democratic Republic of Congo) under the reign of Mobutu Sese Seko is a good illustration of an African tragedy. A nation so rich in national resources – having some of the largest diamond mines in the world – destined for success and growth, becomes victim to one of the worst administrators (if you can even call him that) …

…on economic development. It decreases the efficiency of the civil service and its ability to formulate and implement government development policies, and it robs the country of vast sums of foreign exchange needed for investment” (George Ayittey 262). In other words, corruption puts a “stranglehold on the economic and political levers of powers” (Kempe Ronald Hope Sr. 90-91), thus making it virtually impossible for a government to operate. The cause of the failed state rest directl