Hello fellow Cape Verdeans, I wanted to see what everyone thought about the recent waive of privatization of Cape Verde. As you may know, Since mid-1990s, the government of Cape Verde has implemented a serious of reforms that have led to a dramatic transformation from a centrally planned economy into a market economy.

From 40 in the early 1990s, the number of publicly owned enterprises now have been reduced to six. More recently, TACV* (cv airlines), which was previously owned by government has been recently sold. ENAPOR (company in charge of the Nation's ports) will also soon be sold.

Presently, Cape Verde's goal is to become the main route of transportation to Africa, USA, Europe and South America. It is with that in mind, that Cape Verde has opened a new international airport in praia and plans to open two more. The purpose of these improvements to increase private investment in CV. 2/3 of the Millennium Challenge Account funds ($110 million) from the U.S.A is being used to increase the infrastructure of CV, including roads, ports, airports, and the like in order to better facilitate private investment.

This is what I'd like to call the Globalism's Smack down in CV. Yes, all this is good for the economy; however, my concerns are the consequences that may arise in the future (10-25 years from now). More specifically my concerns are: 1) whether CV can successfully sustain such a great penetration of private investment; 2) will the natives of the country benefit from these privatizations; in order words, who are buying these enterprises? and 3) are the people of cape Verde (especially the youth) prepared to what cape Verde may look like tomorrow?

*TACV provides employment to more people than any other company in CV. What if the new owners of TACV decide that they may need to lay people off in order to promote efficiency? I don't know the particulars of that sale, but it's a concern that I hope is included in the sale contract.


Link:http://bpe.org/btr/index.html

privitazation is a good thing if the government is responsible to make sure the citizens needs are met in terms of minimum wages among other things.

tacv? for an airline that charges up to $1400 round trip from usa or $1000 from Lisbon (for a 3 1/2 hour flight) and then to annually lose millions of dollars something is wrong and maybe nepotism and overemployment is part of their problem. i applaud another concern coming in to run the airline. current management has had their chance and they just aren't getting it done.

About 150 workers are being layd off as part of privatization process in tacv. I wonder how this is being negociated with the layd off workers but certainly it will increase the number of people looking for another corner of the world to immigrate. I am not aginst TACV privatization. At least it will improve the quality of services offered to cv immigrant community abroad, and touristic investment.

I believe this issue presents a challenge for young cape verdeans and cape verdeans abroad to take up the spirit of entrepenourship. There is a lot of maoney circulating in the hands of cape verdeans all over the world. I think the real question is whether we can come together form colaborations to pool our moeny and fund our own investement groups. This is within our reach...The question now is are you ready to step up and take the risk for the sake of our future...Please read my post on the cape verdean reinassance

I have a mixed point of viwe on that topic.

1. the harsh side...CV will be back into the portuguese republic very soon, because cv is not a sustainable country, it needs to be included back into portugal. and this will happen very soon.

2. the good side...CV will devloppe and will meet limitations on its devloppement, which will make cv-politicians aware of the need of cv to go back inside the portuguese republic.

Then the question is what is the best status for cv

1) an independent republic. I think that it will not work, because cv is to small and has no ressources.

2) an autonomous territory of portugal, it is a solution, but not perfect as cv has had 30 of self-governement

3) an independent territory of portugal, this would be the perfect situation as cv would benefit from being part of portugal (our father land) and will continue to have its own governement. (puerto-rico/usa)

4) an associated republic to portugal, this will not bring enough benefits to cape-verde.

For me the perfect status that will allow cv to continue its devloppement is a "independent territory of portugal", which would be fully part of portugal but will have its own governement.

the current status of independent reppublic is not sustainable and will colapse when the country will be upgraded to a middle income-country by the UN which will make international loans more expensive to capeverde.

I think that "allea jacta est" and CV will be back into the portuguese republic in less than 20 years

Back in November 2004 you predicted that Cabo Verde would become a full-fledged member of the European Union by the end of 2005, it's now 2007 and Cape Verde is still not a member of the EU. Now you're predicting that 20 years from now Cabo Verde will revert to being a colony or as you'd say an "indepedent territory of portugal". Well, be aware that time flies and 20 years from now, in 2027, chances are this forum will still be up-and-running, and I will surely disappoint you once more by pointing to you the good economic and cultural statistics of a sovereign independent Cabo Verde .

using st antao's rationale for cv going back to portugal because of their unsustainability....there should be dozens of other countries in similar conditions that should be incorporated back into old colonial powers. it makes no sense. judging a country soley on it's economic worth is like judging an individual on his or her economic worth. it may be part of the picture of the puzzle but it is not the whole puzzle.

st antao...have you been back to cv recently? next time you go, ask her citizens what they think about your idea of them becoming portuguese citizens again. anyone who has been there or lives there can tell you the answer is 'never'.

altair,

yes, the paicv should do a referendum on that question.

Santo Antao,

You clearly do not know Cabo Verde as you said previously, you clearly are not a capeverdean but have lineage in CV as you point out in your previous posts, and that will place in a position of an iliterate about what cabo verde is or its problems.

So, forgive me but your views would make sense only in the aftermath of Independence of CV (1975) era where "some people" were confused about so many things, prfered the anexation to POrtugal like you, and would question every possibility.

My guess is you must be a son of one of the "Portuguese colones intermediates" "galinha pide" of that time who had to flee to Portugal because they had problems to adjust to the newly Independent country, some of them harshly forced to sadly take the option of abandon the country to Portugal by PAIGC, and you wish that this is still a reality today.

I am sorry to disappoint you but your view does not fly today.

One thing Though I have to recognize in you:

YOU HAVE POWER IN THIS. GETTING ATTENTION;

Are you the ATTENTION SEEKER, it is a strategic planning, or not sure which is which yet?

You have the ability to pull everybody, in every debate, to the negative side of issues and we all end up coming back to fight with you and forget about what the topic was. If I do a statistic of your posts I would find 98,3% comments in opposition to what is being said. Does that tell you something?

Do you want to bet and I will send you a report?

Cabrala

cabrala,

I have original ideas that are different from the mass ideas, this makes me think that I am right as long as, the mass, most of the time chooses the wrong choices.
Also I am not a politician, so I don't have to fit to the mass expectations in order to be listened, I tell very sensitive things, and with time, you will see that everything I told here is almost right.

My choices? what I have observed is that even the africanest cap-everdean has a dominant portuguese culture, this has a deep meaning. This means that whatever we want we will allways be portuguese and that trying to fit into african culture is a dead end. The portuguese culture of capeverde is not linked to racial parameters but it is rather linked to political power. the 500 years of cv history made the cv people undelibly portuguese.

Cabrala, are you a capeverdean or an american?

I think st, Antao is working really hard to focus the attention way from the topic at hand. We should focus our discussion on the original topic and stop paying attention useless jargon

Camaradas:

First, I wanted to say "Thank You" to all of you who have shown interest this topic. I trully appreciate all of your responses. As you probably already know, I'm new to this forum. The reason I posted is because I am writing a 25-page paper on the Sustainable Development of Cape Verde - espefically the effects of the massive privatization taking place in Cape Verde on the Future & the Youth. This project has been a greate challenge especially because I have limited resources. Thus, I decided to post this topic up for discussions and hopefully get some help.

Second, I'd like to request that we put all our personal & professsional differences aside and focus on the topic. Everyone's opinion counts! Lets make this forum a platform for the "free market place of ideas." Every idea is due consideration regardless of who is casting it.

Third, I was intrigued by what some of you had to say. Spefically, Cabrala, you mentioned that TACV will lay off 150 people. I would like if possible to get the source of that statement. I want to investigate it further. Also, have you read up on some of the conflics that the CV government is having with ELECTRA (CV electric company) after its privatization? If so, please let me know how I can find further information about it. (Anyone who knows anything about this, please respond).

St Antao had some interesting things to say. Although I dont necessarily agree with his points, (Being a CABRALISTA, I'm for "Pensar Com As Nossas Proprias Cabecas" - thus, I will always be for Cape Verde's total Independence). Nonetheless, I think that St. Antao's point about Cape Verde not being able to sustain itself has a slight truth to it - After all, about 60% of CV's exports goes to Portugal & approx. 40% of its imports comes for Portugal. I have not reached a conclusion about these stats yet, but the issue in my mind is whether CV is trully an independent country or is CV still Portugal's "overseas province".

Last, I want to again invite everyone to help me with this project. Please post any links, articles, books, anything I should consult. I thank all of you in advance for your assistance in this project. I trully appreciate it!

Cabralista, I actually thought you were pretending not to know that TACV had already laid off 150 workers. But oh, well, I guess you really didn't know. In any case, if you can read portuguese you can check on all the CV print and online media outlets. It's really all over the CV news. It's the first time that such mass level of lay off (read: termination) has occured in Cape Verdean airlines which is now currently being managed by a Canadian company. This canadian company won the bid to manage TAICV for one year in preparation for its complete privitalization as World Bank and IMF have been demanding for years.
On a personal note, I would say that I have mixed feelings about this mass lay off, which is really for all intents and porpuses, permanent. Basically, I think there should absolutely be a fiscal sort responsibility in a company such as TACV. There's no reason why the national airlines of Cape Verde should be in the red year after year. There should be a surplus, not a deficit. On the other hand, the 150 laid off workers have families to support and bills to pay. What are they going to do now? TACV is not even willing to give them a severance pay immediately. They're talking about giving a two to three month severance pay in a four year period. This seems to be an injustice. We're talking about people earning roughly the equivalent of $600 US dollars a month, and the company is saying that it'll add that figure times three and pay them little by little in four years? That's gotta be comical! They can do better than that.

Apart from the ways in which the privatization is being processed (lay off workers, which companies to be privatize. I think that Cape Verde will be one the most prosperous country in Africa for the following reasons:

In the XV centuries cape Verd was the main interpost of economic developement of the western countries. Europeans were on the run to everywhere in the world because they needed goods and they knew where to find them. Unfortunately, Africans were understood to be a comodity rather than partners in the process of World development. Now is the era of Globalization which is just another beautiful word to mean " We are on the road again" because the resourses and the man power is still in the so called third world countries. Every company in America and Europe is running to Africa China and India. Development can have its cost too (economic depression) and this is what the developped countries are facing now. Both Europe and America and the new visionary and expansionaist Asian country - china are on the run to the thrid world countries, especially to Africa, all have their eyes placed in Cabo Verde.

Cabo Verde is going to be used as an interpost again for crossing of the Atlantic. (think NATO traning, millenium challenge account, new interests of Italians, chinese etc.) If we are smart people, which we are, we will be using this advantages to work for us. I think that CV State has had good grades, so far, in the eyes of the world headquarters and we only need to keep it up.

Beside we are half million people in Cabo Verde and maybe one million people outside. That alone will make capeverde economy viable, because it takes burden away from the government and allow him chance to strategize and develop. Remember the old indicators of development is now being replaced by new ones and unknowm by many western economists, this is whay they cannot understand CV development. Mexico has huge part of the countries income coming from the immigrant remittance. There will be no calamity in Cabo Verde like PORTUGUESE people had cape verde go through. One ship full of rice will feed the country for months.

So, Cape Verde is economically viable. We know that Portugual will be desperate to take over again but that is a remote possiblility. The prophets of Cv economic inviability has been preaching since 1975. They never are going to go away but we are only thirty years old as a country, and passed to the middle ground group of countries, soon CV will be part of developped countries, versus many other countries whose plan have been in place for 50 to 100 hundred years.

Since we are so alike Portuguese, like Santo Antao once said, we will do it ourselves this time and we will keep everything in the country.

Cabrala

My solution is not acceptable for you and others just because you absolutly want capeverde to be linked to africa because you have been brainwashed by amilcar cabrals theories.
Africa doesn't care of capeverde, the objective solution is capeverde to be intergrated back into portugal, as a self-governed independent territory.

The advantages of such an union are enormous.
1. capeverde continues to stay self-governed. Capeverde will continue to held elections for president, will continue to have its own football team, will if it wants will still continue to be represented in international and regional institutions.
2. capeverde devloppement is not anymore dependent on international aid, the EU will fund the devloppement of capeverde just like it did with spain (spain received 11 billion$/year from the EU since 1986).
3. Emmigration to the EU countries such as holland, france, italy, or england are allowed without any kind of restriction, the EU tourists from holland, france, italy or england can come to capeverde, without any kind of restriction too.

Capeverde will become sustainable in that process and will not anymore have to fight for funds. Capeverde will still be an example of devloppement for africa and it will be also for azores and madeira who will admire capeverde for doing what they always wanted to do...be a self-governed territory, and will end up searching for the same status.

I didn't insult amilcar cabral, I don't aggree with the majority of his ideas. What I dislike with you salah, is that you can't stand someone who criticizes amilcar cabral's ideas. For me this sounds more like a dictatorship of the minds...amilcar cabral is not perfect and no one has to be obliged/forced to share his ideas. I don't share all his main ideas.

I really think that a lot of people here lost their objectivity because they force themselves to stick to amilcar cabrals theories. This makes them less pragmatic and less able to understand trully what is happening. Why because, you think, that if amilcar cabral is against that idea then I am too...

the capeverdeans need to come back to the open world of ideas and not be deadlocked by amilcar cabrals. Amilcar cabral was a good thinker but he was not a genius and even if he was a genius his ideas would not be the "word of god". the more I sea brainwashed people like salah and others who think that amilcar cabral is the only acceptable theorist, the more I dislike amilcar cabrals ideas.

Concerning capeverde, if you look at the facts, it is not linked to africa, not linked to brazzil,...it is linked to portugal culturally, intellectually, economically, historically and geographically (through macaronesia).
The future of capeverde and its devloppement is linked to its future political status. If capeverde stays a fully independent country, it will not be sustainable. A solution would be to link capeverde to africa, but the africans don't want and are not yet able to sustain themselves (not yet that's a fact), then there is a lot of very powerfull countries like usa, uk, france or germany that if they incorporate cv into their nation will be the greatest solution for cv devloppement. But this will never happen, why? because they just don't care of cv. The only nation in the world that cares of cv is Portugal, why? because portugal is the creator of cv, capeverdeans are part of the portuguese people.

there will be advantages on that union as an independent autonomous territory of Portugal, for both. Capeverde will becaome sustainable and portugal and the EU will have a better situation in the control of the atlantic.

Please, everybody Boycott St_Antao!

From reading and analyzing St_Antao's posts I've noticed that he has a clear agenda on this forum:

- Promote the European superiority propaganda based on the color coded system

- Mock and ridicule the Cape Verdean independence from Portugal and at the same time promote the false notion that Cape Verdeans are Portuguese and so should become a dependent territory of Portugal

- Promote the propaganda that Africans are inferior and Cape Verde is not part of Africa

- Interrupt any conversations or discussions about the progress and development of Cape Verde as an independent country

- Insult people, and disturb any progressive debates

- Suffocate the positive things from Cape Verde while gearing everybody's focus on negative and worthless debates

So, since he's against the goals of this forum I suggest everybody here boycott him by ignoring his comments while keeping the positive discussions with other members here.

At some point he's going to get desperate and start to insult other people since no one is paying attention to him. Consequently he’s going to be banned from this great forum and the visitors and members of this site will enjoy exchanging constructive and positive discussions without he’s annoyance and negativity.

Please, let me know if you agree with this approach.

I myself can only take so much ignorance and stupidity, especially when they are premeditated and planned. When it gets to much it triggers my allergy to ignorance and BSing. In fact, my doctor said I cannot hang around ignorance much because it can suck you in like a black hole and make you worse than its source. So, on my department, I'm starting the boycott right as I finish these typing these words.

I AGREE WITH YOU.

YOUR POINT IS WELL MADE.
THANK YOU.

O.K.

3 sparing partners defeated by K.O. (maica, cv2k and salah matheus), who is the next to give up?

I consider that the ones who give up, it is because they don't have any firm ideas to oppose.

I am usually soft, but I have to agree with this boycott. sometimes I felt it was a waste of time debating with Santo Antao. He is not even consistent with his arguments, and too contradictory. That is more of a hate speech than a fruitful debate; he is inconsistent and so repetitive, get you tired and can take any deal - harassing people, etc.

To me, even if we are crazy enough to tell him: "yes, I agree with you 100%!", he will have nothing else to say, he'll stop there.He is just a contradiction. He is in that old mind set - He must read his father's books because his ideas were defended by racists in the beginning of 19th century and now is obsolete.

I would just like to see where his ideas come from? He must be a prophet. A messenger from God or something like that.

Cabrala

your are soft in propaganda and censorship.

To show you how strong and accurate are my ideas, just read the news about the ZEE of cape-verde, the capeverdean governement is asking portugal, france, spain and the usa to send their vessels to patrol the capeverdean waters, because capeverde can't do it.

Was that stupid to you? What do you propose instead? No backwards solution please; we cant walk backwards. Stickt with the positive if you have any reasonable notion of progress.

Cape verde waters are Westerners problem the same way that they are Cv problems. It has to be a conjoint effort to patrol the waters because the drug trafficking that is now taking place in Cabo verde is not 100% CV problems as they also are WEstern people corruption problems and Cv cannot deal with it by itself. Besides Cv is not the biggest looser with these problems.

are you sure? there is already a lot of drugs entering cape verde, and I suspect that the surge in crime is due to drug addicted people (and also the american deportees but that's another problem...).

For me this example of the ZEE waters is a good example of sustainability, and if I was a nationalist, I would call it a lost of sovereignity. Because the foreigners control the waters of the country with their army, in their vessels. This lost of sovereignity is due to the lack of sustainability of Cape Verde as a country.

For me neocolonialism is worst than colonialism, because no one can complain or ask for reparation. Neocolonialism is so soft that there is no invasion. The only real solution is to be inside the club of the rich countries (inside the EU) to be part of it. Then there is disadvantages, which are compensated by the advantages such as investements offered by the EU, freedom of movement inside the EU, share the army and the costs with the EU.

Is it capeverde really a poor and miserable country?

In terms of devlopement it already reached the level of devloppement of countries of eastern europe like, roumania, bulgaria, ukraine and is in front of countries like albania, moldavia, or armenia.

Cabo Verde use to be miserable country (while under the Portuguese colonial power) that every other nation could make fun of including Portugal, which brought many Cverdians to become so self-conscious and low self-esteem. Many people still have a hard time to feel confortable in saying, in loud voice, they are from Cape verde because of the old beliefs about CV. However, the facts are proving that CV is no longer that poorest country in the world.

CV only has a problem of sustainbility to become fully self-sufficient but that is not going to take long to happen because everything is in place to work. Have you heard about 8% growth in economy recently? Only China. Cape Verde is another one. We still have to continue to work on the ancient ghost' The "unbelief" because that is a huge danger to that process but things are moving slowly and steadily towards self-sufficiency. As far as loss of sovereignty, if the example of Santao Antao is the best you can get, that would apply to so many other countries, and you wouldn't consider them having lost their sovereignty, that it is not even something you should worry about now.

Cabrala

Good points Cabrala. It's more advantageous to form alliances than to aquiesce and once again become a colony. For those who haven't been to portugal recently, that country has been struggling economically ever since being incorporated into the eu. Imagine the shape they would be in if they weren't recieving any economic aid from the eu.
one point I would disagree with you cabrala is I have yet to meet any CV's embarrassed of their nationality. maybe we just travel in different circles.

cabrala,

I wish your points are true and anyway we will have the answer in les than 5 years, if capeverde can survive its upgrade to middle income country without being incorporated into a bigger union.

Portugal receives each year 3 billion euros from the EU, and portugal is still struggling because the money have been invested in an odd way. Nevertheless the majority of the island nations that are still part of a EU member are in average 5 times richer than their neighbours it is the case of guiane, matinique, mayotte, canary, nouvelle caledony, ascencion, falklands...

Capeverde will still have an independent gouvernement if it joins back portugal, it will be impossible to erase the result of 30 years of selfgovernance (mainly funded by portugal and the EU), And the other macaronesian Islands will use the same system than cape-verde and have their self-governance...

i am curious st antao. what is the 'odd way' the portuguese have invested their annual stipend of 3 billion euros? is there precedent or reason to make you believe they will change their odd investment strategies? fro my point of view, if they cannot handle their own finances, how will they be able to help cv?

altair,

you have to look at the reality in front, the CV escudo is linked to the euro because portugal accepts to pay in order to maintain the cv escudo/euro peg constant. When the cv companies have been privatised the only country that has been interested in investing is portugal. the foreign investment in capeverde comes mainly from portugal, the main importations comes from portugal, the main exportation go to Portugal. The main support for cv to join the EU is from portugal.

Portugal is the only rich country that is really interested in cv. They have funded during the last 30 years the cv independance alongside the EU, the UN, and the USA...Portuguese prime minister declared last year, that the link between portugal and capeverde was quite special, mainly because; they think almost the same on all the topics and aggree in the same kind of politics naturally...

I think that if capeverde was poor during the 1460-1975 period, it was mainly because portugal itself was poor, and that they couldn't afford to help people in mainland portugal and even less people in cv which is 3000 km from portugal. Now, Portugal receives every year 3 billion euros from the EU for its devloppement, it is a lot compare to the 2 billioneuros/year received by the ACP (Africa/pacific/caraibe). Portugal is in a good situation now.