st antao

do you believe that being reincorporated back into portugal is the only option? why not stay the course and form alliances such as what is going on now? china has recently completed a dam in the interior of santiago and years ago completed the national assembly center. they also are investing heavily in realestate and importing goods to cv and given the sizes between portugal and china, there may be a day (soon) where china will be number one in importing. if that happens, should cv secede from portugal and join china? the usa has their well publicized mca monies. other european countries have paved roads, refurbished airports and contributed to healthcare upgrades.

all this has happened while cv is a soveriegn independant country. i understand your concerns about cv not being able to sustain itself but if you think in a larger context, few if any countries are truly self-sustained. portugal is not, not even the usa or china is (they are not self sustaining when it comes to energy or natural resources) that is what alliances are all about and why they are formed. obviously most these countries are not investing in cv out of altruism....cv has something that they seek either now or in the future. why give up your sovereignty when an alliance is more fruitful? and again, back to portugal, they are having a hard enough time taking care of themselves never mind taking on another country.

altair,

all you are talking about is international aid, and all this will have a higher cost after graduation to middle income country, yes, the international "aid" is not really and "aid" it is a loan, and capeverde has to pay it back, and as a low-income country the interest of the loans were 0%, after graduation, it will be maybe 10%.
You can now understand the paradox that I was talking about, the poor countries have international aid that is a loan that they have to pay back...it increases their debts. A rich country like spain receives 11 billion euros/year from the EU and it is a gift and not a loan, spain can do what ever they want with the money and don't have to pay back. Portugal receives 3 billion euros/year from the EU.

You seem to ignore that when china builds a bridge it is included in the capeverdean debt to china. This is not sustainable for capeverde and inetrnational law, will require capeverde to pay interests on these loans if capeverde is a middle income country.

The MCA is not a loan, but it is still very few money (30 million $/year for 3 years) compared to what madeira or azores receive from the EU every year. If cv joined the EU trough an independent teritory of portugal status, it could receive potentially 500 millioneuos/year as long as cv doesn't reach the average EU GDP/capita....Furthermore as I told before china, usa, france, uk, germany would be good option to be included in but they don't care of capeverde, only portugal does, and because we are somehow part of their "race".

you have a point st antao....with the exception of the mca monies, the rest was aid. so here's some investments in cv that are not under the title 'aid'.

on santiago....the development around praia sao francisco....the land purchased by a chinese concern and over 300 condominuim units purchased before one cinder block has been laid daon...all sol out
praia ilha de gheu...chinese from macau investing over $30 million in a resort/casino
boa visat and sal investments speak for themselves.
now the gov't has not made wise decisions (in my opinion) on tax breaks and local benefits on a lot of these projects but that is a 'fixable' problem.
can we both agree that foreign interest in cv will only grow in the future? and if cv if proceeding on course to be a middle income country, why act third world and ask the old colonizer to take us back?

and lastly, portugal is not in good shape. the average portuguese purchasing power has gone down by half since joining the eu. that does not sound like a good country to hitch ones wagon to. i'll ask you again.....you said in a previous post in this thread that portugal made some 'odd investments' with their annual 3 billion euro stipend. what were those odd investments? and what guarantees can do you think there are that the portuguese will right their economic ship?

there is a joke about the way portugal used the EU funding, they built nice brand new roads that stop just at the boundary of portugal and spain, they didn't think to make the connections with spain, which was the goal of these investements and would have fueled the exchange between the two country...for me it is odd to know that portugal prefered to build highways that go to the villages in deep countryside rather that thinking to do the one that would have linked portugal to spain and by the same way to the rest of the EU...

Concerning the investments, you should be aware by now that the investements by the chinese is nothing compared to the british investements, which are around several billion $ in the next years.
The only problem is sustainability, because it is not the british jobs to make sure that civil-cleks are paid on time by the governement, that the electricity runs 24/7 in capeverde, that the hospitals are high class (british tourists go only to location wiith 5 star service) and also high class highways. The cv governement has to take international aid loans to build roads, and I have heard that some times the workers don't get paid for several months...

If in within a period of 5 years, the capeverde governement doesn't manage to transform the country infrastructures and services into a world class service then the 5 billion $ that the investors want to invest in the next 15 years will not be invested because the british and north-european tourist will refuse to go in capeverde.

If capeverde is part of portugal through an independent teritory status, the problems of funding for the governement will be solved and the debt of cv which is huge compared to the size of the country will be erased because the EU fund are giftsd and not loans...

Santo Antao,

You are the typical example of the people that never believe in CVerde because of your low self-esteem and self-consciousness in your insufficiency: You guys have hard time to call yourselves Capeverdean(yet you love CVerde to death that you can't hide it) and you guys never believe in the progress of Cape Verde ( you keep crying for godfathers). Forgive me to use you as an example only because you are the best I could get.

Open your eyes, Cverdeans are not stupid: Portugal needs Capeverde and Cape verde needs Portugal 50%. The interest of Portugal in having CV escudos tied to Portuguese escudos are not naive. As you said, most of the imports to Cape Verde comes from Portugal:

Whose interests is it anyway?

Of course Portuguese's interests are more than Capeverdeans. Most of Products that CV imports from Portugal comes from other areas, meaning Portuguese are the middle man. Couldn't CV do it themselves directly?

If CV escudos isolate from Portuguese euros, it will fluctuate more of course, but it will as well be a Problem for Portugal because we wouldn't be able to import as much from Portugal and there is the risk of us tying to other currencies. For example, The never ending economic problem of Guinee Bissau owes it to a stupid decision of Nino Vieira(President) to tie his currency(escudos) to the CEFA (French west cost currency). While Portugal did not like it, it instigateded Guine Bissau and induced Assumane Mane ( the head of the army) into coup d'etat. Ironically, Nino escaped to Portugal with the help of Portuguese troops. They soon realized Assumane Mane couldn't make it as a chief of State and Portuguese allowed him to die. Assumane Mane was used as a Puppet. Now, Nino Vieira is in Power again and learned his lesson.

That is the tragic result of the struggle for regional dominance between France and Portugal. France dominates the Western Africa region as a neo-colony and Portuguese wanted to at least keep the ex-colonies.

Capeverdeans are trained by Portuguese and we know our masters. We know how to screw them if they play dirty.

A huge mistake was made in 90's to give the country back to Portugal through the process of privatization, but that is being reversed slowly. Now, CV is in the Process of diversifying the International investors so that they do not have the monopoly of foreign investment. Canada is in the Process of taking TACV, Chinese people, British, Italians, USA and others. France doesn't have much interest in Cape verde, or at least they didn't show it so far. Once we have them divided, it will be easier to mange and more difficult to them to come to a consensus.

Remember, about 90% of graduates (politicians) in CV studied in the so called Industrilized Countries ( Portugal, France, USA, Britain, Russia, etc) as wel as Cuba and Brazil.

We are not interested in middle man. We can achieve by own merit!

Cabrala

cabrala,

you seem convinced that portugal wants to fool capeverde.

You wrote a very interesting message but look at the truh, the cv companies have been privatised, because cv is not ustainable and needs international aid (=expensive loans) to fund those companies. The MPD tried to privatise the cv companies in order to give some air to the capeverdean economy, which would incure less international aid loans to be borowed. The facts is, as I told you before, is that Portugal is the only country that is really interested in capeverde, and they were the only ones to be interested in investing in the cv privatised companies (remember that china was just waking up in the 1990's). Unfortunatly, portugal is not good at economics and this privatisation has been a failure. If England, USA, Canada, fFance or Germany had invested in privatised cv companies, it would have been a success, but they were not interested, only Portugal was interested. The privatisation of cv companies was not an obvious win-win investement for foreign investors.

Alternatively, I think that political partisianism is blurring your vision, the MPD sold the cv companies to portugal, the companies stayed in between the "familly", but the PAICV is selling the capeverdean land for one euro (=peanuts). this is worst for the future of the capeverdeans because the only thing they had, their lands, will not belong to them anymore in the future.

I think that you wrote a lot of tru things above, mainly that it is good to have a lot of investors there in order not to be over-dependent but now the land has gone, it belongs to foreigners...is it that independancy?

Thank you manu salah,

Santo Antao,

It is not true that only Portuguese people were interested in the companies in Cverde. Many other foreign companies were interested in telecom, but was given stupidly to Portuguese with a contract that did not interest cape verde -

The agreement was signed 8 days before the election of 2005 in a selection process not very clear.

Telecom was, then, supposed (word of mouth) to subsidy the Postal Services for five years, which never happened because after signature, Portuguese refused to carry on their verbal commitment. The same thing with Electra. These companies would be taken by any foreign investors because do not have internal competitors. They are perfect cow to produce income, even though they need to develop. Portugal telecom was in bad shape, broken at that time.

there is great info on what is happening in cv on the web especially in regards to economic and social adjustements being made in our country. If you don't already know how to acess this info visit: expressodasilhas.cv/asemana.cv/governo.cv/ic.cv/cciasb.org among others also tcv.cv for the latest news

cabrala,

for me to be convinced that you are honest and not politically oriented in this debate, you have to answer to these questions...

1. Who were the other countries that wanted to invest in cvtelecom and electra?

2. Why do you try to avoid to talk about the cv land sold for 1euro/km2 to foreigners for them to build hotels? Do you prefer to sell the companies to foreigners or to sell your land to foreigners? What is the most problematic?

3. What do you think of the fact that for the 5 first years of investment, the foreigners have to pay no taxes, and can repatriate all their benefits to their country?

[quote="St_antao"]cabrala,

for me to be convinced that you are honest and not politically oriented in this debate, you have to answer to these questions...

1. Who were the other countries that wanted to invest in cvtelecom and electra?

2. Why do you try to avoid to talk about the cv land sold for 1euro/km2 to foreigners for them to build hotels? Do you prefer to sell the companies to foreigners or to sell your land to foreigners? What is the most problematic?

3. What do you think of the fact that for the 5 first years of investment, the foreigners have to pay no taxes, and can repatriate all their benefits to their country?[/quote


From the information that I get all of that was done under MpD watch.
Now the present government(PAICV) must go to the courts to reverse what MpD did. That takes time. When MpD came into office they did what they wanted to do without impunity,like change the flag without asking the people or taking a vote. They never asked the people and they did not use any form of democracy.

from what you wrote I can understand that you are politically implicated in this debate and that your vision is blured by your political orientation.

well, MPD is right wing, so they do a right wing policy, such as privatisation...Why not? after all if it is a success, this will allow cv to reduce the collosal debt, because they will not have to fund those companies, foreign investors will do it for the cv governement.
As I told, unfortunatly, only portugal is interested in cv, and they were the only ones to be interested in investing on very expensive companies. The chineses were not big enough at that time yet.
This policy has been a failure, and now, the Paicv has to break all this. But that's the point, precisely when you sell the companies you can claim them back...BUT the Paicv is doing something very dangerous now, one that unlike privatisation can't be brought back...they are selling the cv land for 1$/km2 this will difficultly reversed.

I will ask again these question to have answers

1. Who were the other countries that wanted to invest in cvtelecom and electra? (MPD policy)

2. Why do you try to avoid to talk about the cv land sold for 1euro/km2 to foreigners for them to build hotels? Do you prefer to sell the companies to foreigners or to sell your land to foreigners? What is the most problematic? (Paicv policy)

3. What do you think of the fact that for the 5 first years of investment, the foreigners have to pay no taxes, and can repatriate all their benefits to their country?(Paicv policy)

the sad thing is, Cape Verde was sold to the World Bank right after they killed Amilcar Cabral. Aks the president, he'll tell you.

What do you mean?

I find it so very interesting that some folk have so much to say about Cabo Verde economic development with so little information based on any facts. Such statements that the World Bank ownes Cabo Verde.

I wonder if the same ideas are held when in fact Dubai just made a deal of $1.5bn for U.S companies and Arab owners of U.S. infrastructure assets.Terminal ports by Dubai Ports World.or how much the E.U.& U.S . are doing.
Trying to do with the imperialistic control of the Global market.
All 3rd world countries have to do a real balancing act to stay viable.
look at what London is doing just in Africa. Between the UK & the US
it is a roller coaster ride. France is holding its own but shaky and poor Portugal is holding on for dear life. France is not a happy camper just about now. What a storm blowing out there

3rd world countries while having difficulties will survive because they are down on the ground and they will maintain by picking up the pieces from the rich mans table for now it is called the crumbs. but crumbs is better then nothing.The poor know how to live poor that is not the way of the affluent,rich and famous.

Cabo Verde will sustain, to bear up, and withstand the pressure,we did it in the days of famine and without nothing at least now we have a little something to work with when it is all over with we will be standing and navigating thru the intricate network by our endurance.

So be it the will of all Africa,That which was last will become first.

Ha ha by the the will of D.E.U.S.

No Pintcha!!!!
P.A.I.C.V

That is the way the cookie will crumble.
It makes no difference what you all say that is the way it is my brothers and sisters. The genius of the 'Engineer' is at work.
Its a Cabo Verde thing from Mai-Pai & Deus one for all and all for one.
Do you dig it?
A distinctive strategy based upon meticulous study of the conditions in our country

Whoa! To those who will not be able to contain China. Shay Shay Nee.

I am not an economist, but I can see eye to eye the hand writing on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Jackand Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water,Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

Viva Povo Cabo Verde.
Unidade e Lutta

cabrala,

why don't you reply on the fact that the PAICV is selling the capeverdean land for 1$/km2 (=for free), don't you think that it is wost than privatising the companies?
Are you a member of the PAICV?

What do u guys think?

If Amilcar Cabral was still alive, would CV be a communist country like Cuba or Russia?

no,

the cv people would have put him out of the power after some 10 years of failure of communist party, just as they did in 1990 when we created the first true cape-verdean constitution and free elections

st antao using the words "we" and "cape-verdean" in the same sentence? is this a typographical error or a change in perspective?

it is your narrow minded definition of capeverdean and also a narrow minded idea of capeverde that makes you be surprised

lighten up st antao....'tis a joke. i could respond in a negative way but i'll leave the immature responses in your capable hands my portuguese, cape-verdean, french amigo

I am all but a nationalistic person. I am against national propagandas that have as an ultimate goal to put people one against the other.

Further more I don't think that calling me a capeverdean is a correct term, I don't live in capeverde, I have been in capeverde very few times and I don't speak criolo. These three points for me are the main points of someone being able to define himself as a capeverdean.

I started to be interested in capeverde politics once the "petition" for a proposal of capeverde to join the EU has been launch in portugal. I hope for cv this will have a positive issue in some short years...

st antao....i know where you're coming from and whethere i agree or disagree with you, you are consistant wth your passion and beliefs. this is why i found your sentence a couple of posts ago using 'we' with 'cape verdeans' so amusing. nothing mean and i think if you were coming from my perspective, you'd find it amusing, too.