Most French-speaking African countries are known to print their money with France’s central bank and with the French printing company Oberthur Fiduciaire. 14 african countries are obliged by France, through a colonial pact, to put 85% of their foreign reserve into France central bank under French minister of Finance control. Until now, 2014, Togo and about 13 other african countries still have to pay colonial debt to France. African leaders who refuse are killed or victim of coup. 

Printing new bank notes is also imposed by the fact that the pictures of Presidents are printed on the bank bills which imposed their destructions, once the President is ousted, exiled or just replaced by a junta and civilian coalition.

In fact, during the last 50 years, a total of 67 coups happened in 26 countries in Africa, 16 of those countries are french ex-colonies, which means 61% of the coups happened in Francophone Africa.

Number of Coups in Africa by country

As these numbers demonstrate, France is quite desperate but active to keep a strong hold on his colonies what ever the cost, no matter what.

In March 2008, former French President Jacques Chirac said:

“Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power”

Chirac’s predecessor François Mitterand already prophesied in 1957 that:

 ”Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century”

Printing African Money is a Treasure for European Countries

The African Development Bank Group should find remedies to these abusive inheritance from the past that are still shackling the development of the African Countries

Africa needs to be liberated from such financial vassality to the Western Metropoles and have their own Interafrican Bank to regulate and distribute the value of the African Money among the African Countries based on Special Drawing Rights.

No loan should be contracted from Foreign banks who have banquerobbed the African countries in the past and imposed to them draconian terms just for the payment of the interests.

The Business and the Monetary and the Financial Climate need more consideration than the Climate of the Nature, given that Africa is still paying the former colonisers for using their own money, for processing their own natural resources and their foods.

At least 40 African countries print their money in the UK, France and Germany — decades after independence, raising questions about self-sufficiency. 

African Development Bank Group should print the money for the African countries to help them to get off the hook of the former colonisers that still control the printing and the value of their money and their finance which impacted their monetary policies. Many countries when ordering the printing of their money by European Countries, ended up with shortage of monetary liquidities.

Among the top firms that African central banks partner with are British banknote printing giant De La Rue, Sweden-based Crane, and Germany’s Giesecke+Devrient.

How transparent is the process?

It is perhaps surprising that almost all African countries import their currencies. The practice could even raise questions of national pride and national security.

For richer countries, like Angola and Ghana, there’s also the issue of real autonomy and economic sufficiency.

Most countries are tight-lipped about their currency-printing processes — likely for security reasons. The printing firms are even less transparent.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is where the US dollar and US government treasuries have been printed for more than 150 years.

In total, notes worth $560 million (€484 billion) are produced here every day in the United States. The costs for production and paper are 3.6 cents per dollar.

Ethiopia, Libya and Angola — along with 14 other countries — place orders from De La Rue, writes Ilyes Zouari, who studies African countries. Six or seven other nations including South Sudan, Tanzania and Mauritania are said to print theirs in Germany.

It’s not clear how much it costs to print currencies like the dalasi, exactly. Banknote printer G+D told DW that it’s impossible to estimate the costs of a single currency — the firm charges a country based on the country’s requirements for security features and the number of denominations to be produced.

These costs differ from country to country and from order to order. However, the company said, the cost of a single banknote is usually less than 10 euro cents.

Still, it is likely that the cost of printing for over 40 African currencies is significant.

In 2018, a central bank official in Ghana complained to local journalists that the country spends huge amounts for its UK orders of the Ghanaian cedi.

And since countries usually order millions of notes to be carted in containers, they usually have to pay hefty shipping fees. In The Gambia’s case, officials say shipping costs rack up a bill of £70,000 (€84,000, $92,000).

Only a handful of African countries, like Nigeria, Morocco, and Kenya have enough resources to print their own currencies or mint their own coins, and even they sometimes supplement production with imports.

Is third-party printing secure?

Ekeruche said some individual countries attempting to produce their own currencies could fall victim to corrupt officials or hackers who might attempt to forge or manipulate them. In many cases, outsourcing is more secure.

Even with importing, there can be challenges. Containers of Liberian dollars shipped from Sweden disappeared in 2018, although the government later accounted for it.

Meanwhile, firms like De La Rue have existed for hundreds of years, mass-producing for central banks across the world.

They have the tools and experience to keep up to date with currency innovations, such as polymer which is considered cleaner, more durable and more secure than paper, with the plastic material allowing the inclusion of more sophisticated features to protect against counterfeits.

Why not print the notes in Africa?

African countries have been formulating plans to boost intra-African trade. There is currently more trade with Western and Eastern countries than there is within the continent.

Printing banknotes in Africa would boost profits on the continent and, at least theoretically, African countries could choose those with printing capabilities since there’s likely some idle capacity.

And there’s the complicated case of Francophone Africa — the countries using the Central African CFA franc and the West African CFA franc. The currencies are tightly pegged to the euro because of colonial relations and are produced in France.

Still, there’s hope that change could be on the horizon. With The Gambia’s central bank, officials proposing a possible partnership with Nigeria, countries could start to look inwards for their currency orders. If that happens at scale, it could cut shipping costs drastically.

So what the African Development Bank Group is doing about all these deformations and destructuralizations of the Financial sector in Africa?

You tell Mr. the President Akinwumi Adesina !

#business#finance#development#africa#bank#printing#money#help#banks#monetarypolicy#currency#france#euro#shipping

Sources:

Why Africa prints money in Europe – DW – 03/24/2022

At least 40 African countries print their money in the UK …