Mark
Thank you for your response.
Further: “The pipeline project has been affected by persistent charges and fears about corruption and the diversion of revenues—ostensibly intended for poverty reduction—towards arms purchases…”
The doubling of the arms budget from those funds set aside to provide humanitarian service did not mean that those arms funds were going to the purchase of weapons or weapon systems, rather, to pay the wages of soldiers so they won’t mutiny. Sophisticated weaponry require people who can use it. During the cold war, one of the reasons why there were Cuban “volunteers” in Africa was to operate the Soviet equipment.
African leadership issues are more about acquiring and maintaining power requiring the tribal members of the military stay loyal to the regime. Leaders are more worried about the sergeant brother-in-law 3rd removed confiscating the soldiers wages and buying himself a Mercedes than providing clean water for villages. After all, villages have survived without clean water for thousands of years, and, more likely than not, they will continue to survive into the future without clean water.
Clean water and all sorts of humanitarian ideology is useful to sell outside sources to develop and fund another revenue stream to be pilfered.
