Chief Executive Officer, Redville Group, South Africa, Sihle Bam, has expressed that the time has come for Africa cities and new communities to be designed and built by Africans to meet specific cultural and geographical needs of Africans.
According to the expert associated with one of the continent’s most renowned real estate organization, a careful observation of Africa cities revealed that they were built with colonial mentality to marginalize blacks and dedicate the prime areas to the white, citing Apartheid South Africa as an example, reiterating that it is time to change that narrative.
“We all know Africa’s painful colonial history, and so colonial cities were built to serve colonial interest. Natives were restricted into cheap labour, multinationals and colonial powers controlled the most fertile lands, mines and economic preference. This is pattern that continues to prevail over African until this very day.
It is about time that Africa start to redesign and rebuild itself in an African way. It is time to build cities for Africa by African, cities that will be designed by indigenous engineers and professionals having a say in the housing, offices and prime facilities architecture. We are talking about cities with progressive spatial design, women and youth participation, economic ownership of the value chain, job creation for locals, circulation of income and green smart cities,” he said.
He further indicated that the building of new smart cities by Africans allows Africans to take ownership of the entire value chain and circulate income among themselves.
Mr. Bam, made these remarks on the occasion of the second edition of ‘Business Xplosion 2021’, a conference organized by the Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber (GITAC). The Business Summit brought together both local and international business-minded individuals and institutions as well as investors to access import and export information as well as network with sector players to harness investment opportunities.
On her part, Minister of State for Works and Housing, Freda Prempeh, emphasized the critical role infrastructure plays as an important element for economic development.
“Infrastructure investment serves as major means of creating jobs, and impacting on the value chain, which in turn touches a lot of lives and livelihoods. Governments around the world invest heavily in infrastructure to create jobs and also sustain other parts of the economy with its spillover effects, and Ghana is not an exception,” she said.
The President of GITAC, Dominic Oduro-Antwi, stated that business xplosion, has again prove its relevance in its second edition and as such will continue to dedicated time and resources to make sure to continues annually to woes investors into the country and connect business tycoons to do business.
