The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

by Tom Burgis Narrated by Grover Gardner

Overview

The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.
In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline.
This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth $333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction. But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France's nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Michela Wrong

This is a brave, defiant book, for the bleakness of Burgis's vision jars with the tenor of the times. "Africa Rising" has become the obligatory catch phrase applied to the continent in recent years, a label inspired by the growth of an aspirational African middle class, the invigorating impact of mobile-phone and Internet technology, and growth rates in gross domestic product that European countries can only envy. It is fashionable, these days, to be upbeat about Africa. Burgis is having none of it…Burgis…has a brisk, muscular writing style…The book is at its best when [he] puts percentages and statistics aside and hits the road, interviewing the fishermen, artisanal miners and slum dwellers dispossessed and bankrupted by the deals described.

From the Publisher

"A great scrapbook of exploitation. It is written in a way that will appeal to the general reader, but still interest specialists...Burgis has the good sense not to present [the cruel contrast between individual poverty and national wealth] in an alarmist way, but with an understatement that is far more powerful...The Looting Machine is in part a means of self-exoneration, a way of making amends to those he ultimately could not help...[in this book] has done a service to some of the world's poorest people." —Financial Times

"[An] excellent, finely reported book...The great value of The Looting Machine lies in its fresh detail, storytelling and the characters Burgis introduces. The Looting Machine is crammed with colour and lively investigative reporting." —Literary Review (UK)"

Revealing...Burgis explains lucidly how the oil and mineral bonanza subverts societies and corrupts western multinational companies trying to cash in...[He] is particularly acute in analysing how multinationals connive in this institutionalised theft…This intelligent book should give us all pause for thought when we fill our cars with petrol." —The Sunday Times (UK)

One of Financial Times' Books of the Year, 2015

"...a brave and defiant book." —New York Times Sunday Book Review

"...powerful new book." —Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist

“[an] impressive study…It is to Mr. Burgis's tremendous credit that he writes with such tenacity.” —Wall Street Journal

"[Burgis] presents a lively portrait of the rapacious 'looting machine'...a rich collage of examples showing the links between corrupt companies and African elites."—The Economist

“[Burgis] brings the tools of an investigative reporter and the sensibility of a foreign correspondent… [He] transcends the tired binary debate about the root causes of the continent's misery.”—Howard French, Foreign Affairs

"Essential for understanding the colonial Africa of the past and, even more so, the diverse Africa of today." –Library Journal

"A brave, excoriating exposé of the systematic ruination of resource-rich countries of Africa, leaving "penury and strife" for its millions of inhabitants...An earnest, eye-opening, important account for Western readers." —Kirkus Reviews STARRED

"[Burgis] makes a powerful case, through anecdote and evidence, that the dirty trade in raw materials serves individuals' own enrichment and the demands of oligarchic and state interests worldwide." —The Times (UK)"

After nine years reporting on Africa for the Financial Times, Tom Burgis exposes how the extractive industries have turned into a hideous looting machine…[an] informative book.” —The Guardian (UK)"

Burgis shows how even the World Bank is linked to this looting [of Africa, and he] makes an important case colourfully, convincingly and at times courageously as he confronts some of those involved in the pillaging." —Observer (UK)"

Brilliant…fascinating detail… The book lives up to its colourful subtitle – “Warlords, tycoons, smugglers and the systematic theft of Africa's wealth”. Showing the finesse and determination that has won him awards at the FT, and at considerable risk to his own well-being, Burgis tracks down and confronts the people at the centre of this plunder." —African Research Institute

"A rollercoaster read. Filled with vignettes on spooks, smugglers and kleptocratic warlords with suitcases of cash, it reads like a crime thriller, while at the same time being a well-researched, accessible account of the extractives industry; the privatisation of power in Africa and its impact on the continent's people." —African Arguments

"This fine book...catalogues the grotesque self-enrichment of the callous rulers of Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria—countries that should be immensely wealthy, but which remain poor, even by African standards. In each case, this theft of national treasure would be impossible without non-African facilitators. ... Burgis's book is essential to understanding why poverty, ignorance and conflict persist in Africa." —Independent Catholic News

"An excellent book. Despite Africa's impressive economic 5% growth rate, Tom Burgis ensures that we don't stop wondering who does what in Africa and how we are all party to what Western “investors” are up to. The post-colonial corruption and rape of African resource to the benefit of western consumption is still alive and horribly well.” —Jon Snow, presenter, Channel 4 News (UK)

Library Journal

03/01/2015
While reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa and Lagos, Nigeria for the Financial Times, Burgis realized that natural resources might be Africa's curse, not its salvation. In this alarming history of colonialism and exploitation, Burgis skillfully explains how Africa's longstanding difficulty in securing Western support has led to a partnership with China in which that country has provided "infrastructure for interference" to several African countries since the 1990s. Interviews with politicians, miners, and even militia members humanize residents yet also describe how oil-backed credit became de facto in Angola, how counterfeit textile smuggling became commonplace in Nigeria, and how the recent commodities boom in the United States led to military-controlled mines and mineral-funded wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This decades-long history of oil hierarchies and diamond monopolies and kleptocrats and autocrats is further examined in Guinea, Niger, Ghana, and South Africa, with Burgis connecting them to finance-driven Wall Street and oil-based Houston. For each African country, the author provides historical insight into shadow governments, the agencies behind the machine, and the resilience of residents. VERDICT Essential for understanding the colonial Africa of the past and, even more so, the diverse Africa of today. For public and academic libraries collecting in African history and international relations, fans of Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost, readers interested in Africa's future, and especially readers who aren't.—Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

Kirkus Review

★ 2015-01-14
A brave, excoriating exposé of the systematic ruination of resource-rich countries of Africa, leaving "penury and strife" for its millions of inhabitants.A Financial Times journalist based at various points in Africa since 2008 (Johannesburg, Lagos), Burgis makes some astonishing assertions and revelations about the ongoing kleptocracy in the most resource-rich countries of Africa—e.g., Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. In many cases, China has been the dark force behind the extraction. The author examines the much-debated "resource curse" for countries in which "extractive industries" such as oil and mining dominate: These richest African countries also rank at the top of the world's extreme poverty rates. The pot of resources is rife for the taking by those who control the state ("big man" politics), and because the rulers do not need to tax the people to fund government, there is no need for their consent. Burgis explains how this inversion of "no taxation without representation" ruptures the social contract between the rulers and the people, who have no ability to hold them accountable. Specifically, the author delves into Angola's shadowy Futungo cartel, by which the family of leader José Eduardo dos Santos has amassed a "war chest" from the country's oil industry. Burgis also looks at the destruction of Nigeria's textile industry by Chinese imitators and smugglers, thrusting millions of Nigerians into horrendous poverty, as well as the Chinese middlemen who prey on African industries and the massive investment provided by the Chinese to spur development, mining and drilling. The author destroys the argument that a commodity boom actually creates economic growth and better lives for people—indeed, the opposite is true when one considers the human development index. Moreover, Burgis strenuously blames the West for its "complicity" in encouraging the commodity rape of Africa. An earnest, eye-opening, important account for Western readers.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171415358
Publisher:	Ascent Audio
Publication date:	05/01/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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