The former Togolese Minister of Foresight, the anti-F CFA warrior breaks the silence, since some of his remarks at a university conference in Lomé, had been outraged. For man, one should not translate the need to leave the CFA as a revolution, let alone a magic and unwavering solution against the situation of extreme poverty in Africa. Nor should it be a joke: "I would like us to prepare for change, a real change," he says. What does Professor Kako Nubukpo intend to leave the CFA franc and what are the stakes associated with such a commitment? What challenges? Answers in the full message below.
Abolishing the CFA franc is the mission, the struggle that has inspired me over the last fifteen years. I was a doctor of economics and an associate of the Faculties of Economic Sciences. I was a macro economist, head of the department at the headquarters of the BCEAO in Dakar, former Minister of Foresight and Evaluation of Public Policies in Togo. The University of Oxford (University College), and today I am director of the Francophone Economic and Digital Francophonie at the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie in Paris.
I do not pay for titles, I accumulate experiences. My questions about the CFA franc are not a study object of ivory tower. As a researcher and institutional actor, I have experienced, in various ways, the limits of our monetary system, hampering the development of the countries that still depend on it. It is against this voluntary servitude that I rise for the future of our countries and our children. How can we explain to them tomorrow that we have let them do? That we fed the treasury of the French Treasury? While the reservations that it imposes on us with our full allegiance could be reinvested in our economies to build schools, dispensaries, electrify rural areas, build modern infrastructure worthy of the 21st century, Bank loans and finance income-generating activities. I'm not an activist, I'm a committed intellectual. I hope that, beyond all human faillibility, the debate, because it transcends my only person, takes place.
It seems all the more urgent to me that, since we have not been able to diversify their economies at the time of the 10-year cycle of bullish commodities, particularly oil, the countries of the oil-exporting FFU are currently facing the full reversal Of the price of raw materials. Such a situation leaves the specter of a new devaluation of the CFA franc in the weeks or months to come. It makes part of the debate on the optimal use of foreign exchange reserves, the latter having melted as snow in the sun in the account of operations held by the French Treasury, as the rate of increase Twin deficits accumulated by the Franc zone economies.
As a sophisticated observer, and in concert with my colleagues in this battle, we see that many of us join our ranks because our cause is right. We are not pyromaniacs, we do not wish to destabilize our already fragile economies, an argument which is too easily opposed to us. We want our states to be able to enjoy their sovereignty fully in a renewed economic framework that serves the greatest number of people.
The fixed parity with the euro supposedly guarantees stability, the total guarantee of convertibility of the CFA franc in euros and the free movement of capital remain the royal route of accumulation outside our borders. There is a manna, woolen stock in European banks, which escapes us while the majority of our populations remain pushed into poverty without any horizon, at the risk of borrowing sometimes dugout canoes Their last trip. I tell you enough. We are responsible and we can not discard our responsibilities.
In a recent series of articles and interviews, French political and economic leaders put us in front of our responsibilities and assert that France will simply take the track that Africans have decided to follow in terms of monetary management within the Zone Franc. If there is reason to criticize a lack of elegance on the part of a partner who in the past has shown much less modesty about African affairs, chicken, take our responsibilities, make bold proposals But responsible.
Let's be clear, the change in the monetary system within the Franc area will not be a revolution. I hardly believe in the evening. It will first of all be necessary to opt for a less rigid CFA franc, attached to a basket of currencies. It will be necessary to negotiate the abandonment of the system of the account of operations, true insurance all risks against the failures of the African governance instead of insuring against the exogenous shocks - its primary vocation and thus cut the umbilical cord with the French Treasury. So let us pay attention to the makeup specialists, who look like the reform. I do not want a simple change of denomination of the CFA currency, pale hideout misery.
I would like us to prepare for change, a real change.
Change can frighten, fear because there is the unknown. This is not new, the question is existentialist. In monetary economics this feeling bears a name: "the fear of the floating". But to counter this, we must prepare ourselves, debate, consider different scenarios, act and precisely not be afraid, have confidence in us. The abolition of the CFA franc, a remnant of colonization, is not an idea, it is a program.
I appeal to all good will, to the vital forces of our countries, to join the debate, to enlighten us with their reflections and their talents. We need to set a course. Another Africa is possible and it is not just a utopia. History looks at us.
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