New Africa wealth report sees SA still on top – just

The average South African is still the richest in Africa, but oil and mining wealth mean that other countries are in hot pursuit. This was the outcome of a major report on the wealth of Africa’s citizens released by the consultancy New World Wealth this week.

The Wealth Statistics in Africa report shows that the spread of multiparty democracy in the late 1990s and the commodity booms of the 2000s have transformed the fortunes of ordinary people in countries like Angola, even if this wealth remains concentrated. While ‘trickle-down economics’ is now widely disproven as an economic theory, and while almost all the countries surveyed are marked by extreme inequality, an indication of average wealth does signal a steady accumulation of capital in almost every African country.

South Africa’s average wealth has leapt up from a mere USD 4200 in 2000 (about ZAR 45 000, close to that of the average Egyptian at present) to USD 11 310, or ZAR 121 046 at current rates.

Despite years of steady growth, relative economic stability and several peaceful transfers of power, East and Southern African states like Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda range around the USD 400 mark.

Even East African regional power Ethiopia, which has grown and diversified rapidly, has a mere USD 260 in capital per person. But, if the total wealth – which includes real estate, commercial interests, cash and all other assets – is still low in this region, the trajectory is still upwards; the same cannot be said of Zimbabwe.

South Africa’s neighbour to the north has fallen from its place among Africa’s wealthiest countries before the start of Robert Mugabe’s land-reform program in the 2000s to a place near the bottom in 2013. Even the partial macro-economic stabilisation of 2009 has barely staunched the outflow and destruction of wealth, and the 89-year old Mugabe’s indigenisation policy risks plunging the economy back into freefall. Current wealth in Zimbabwe stands at USD 570, and declining steadily.

Wealth and development in Africa have long clustered at the northern and southern extremes, and North Africa continues to benefit from well-developed trade and economic links with wealthy European and Middle Eastern markets, as well as the ease of maritime trade with these markets. Wealth in this region ranges from USD 11 040 in oil-rich Libya to USD 4350 in Egypt. Political reconstruction in this area in the wake of the Arab Spring should accelerate wealth production.

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