THERE is a serious crisis of social and political leadership in Africa, Ghanaian scholar Professor Kwame Karikari has observed.

And South African finance minister Trevor Manuel has called for the need for African countries to engage the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the EU (EU) in stating that some policies were not workable in the African set up.

Addressing the on-going African Economic Editors' Forum at the Rosebank Hotel in Johannesburg yesterday, Prof. Karikari from the Media Foundation for West Africa called on journalists to highlight this problem if it had to be addressed.

"It is a serious social crisis and all our countries are sitting on a serious bomb," he said. Prof. Karikari was responding to a question from a World Bank representative on why some positive developments in the new policies and technologies being implemented were being ignored during his presentations to journalist.

He said most policies had impacted negatively and only a fraction of the population seemed to have been benefiting from the very technology and policies.

"Go to any city, you will find that more and more of our young girls and women are now turning to prostitution, while we have seen an escalation of wars in the last 15 to 20 years," he said.

Prof. Karikari said even the critical area of education through which the people could be able to understand the same technology for their countries' benefit had lamentably collapsed as a result of the new policies driven by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

"Education has collapsed and outside South Africa, there is no credible university that is still standing," he said.

Prof. Karikari said it had now become a norm for the population in the affluent category to send their children abroad for studies, an indication that there was little or no confidence left in the local education system.

He expressed sadness that even food which a while ago most African countries were producing in abundance was now scarce with most nations turning to the international community for assistance to feed their populations, on account of the new policies.

Prof. Karikari urged the journalists to report on this scenario so that the problem could ultimately be addressed.

He said it was ironical that countries like Ghana which had implemented the economic policies like privatisation and economic reforms in the last decade still went back to the multilateral institutions to plead to qualify for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

And addressing the editors at a welcoming reception on Sunday evening, Manuel called on African countries to engage the IMF, World Bank and the EU in stating that some policies were not workable in the African set up.

He said while this should not be confrontation, there was need to make the EU, the IMF and the World Bank aware that African countries could still make their own decisions for the benefit of their people. However, Manuel bemoaned the lack of capacity in some nations to effect this.

Earlier in response to a question on South Africa's alleged economic recolonisation of some African countries, Manuel said while there were fears of recolonisation, the whole issue could be avoided. "The key issue is to ensure that there is no dominance," Manuel said.

"First you have to ensure that there are alternative industries or competition and if there are none then the government should ensure that there are partnerships between the local and foreign investors."

However, Manuel caused laughter when he said there was something fishy about the colonisation fears. "Africans would rather have a MacDonalds everyday and will see nothing wrong with it but when its is Steers there is a problem," Manuel said.

"It appears they would rather be colonised by the North."