Where is the trickle down?

For those interested in Africa's economic future, and the growing influence of China on the continent, I recommend "Untapped: The scramble for Africa's oil," by John Ghazvinian. His research shows it is naive to assume that the citizens, as opposed to the ruling elite, will see any benefit whatsoever from finding oil in their country. Only five per cent of all spending on developing a local oil industry occurs within the country in question, and African governments almost always negotiate a terrible deal for themselves. Sadly the vast majority of rulers seem concerned only with their own personal slice of the revenues, and Ghazvinian's book has plenty of depressing stories about their greed, corruption and vanity. Yet more proof that the tragedy of Africa is the ghastly people holding all the power, so often propped up by Western governments for our own geo-political reasons.