Veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt Jr. has stated that attempts by Western countries to support Africa are rather ways of neo-colonizing the continent.

He explained that every support that has come from these countries for development has been conditioned in a way that pins the continent down further than countries like China do for it.

Speaking in a video clip of an interview with CGTN shared on Twitter, the veteran journalist explained that the situation with China’s presence in Africa is that there is a hysteria around what it is doing.

He was responding to assertions that Africa was being invaded by China with a plan to take over the continent.

He explained that these moves are fueled by Western governments, as there is no history of a Chinese government ever overthrowing an African government.

“We have to understand that we are discussing this within the context of an anti-China hysteria, which is deliberately fuelled by Western governments, Western intelligence agencies, and the media. It’s a vigorous anti-China hysteria; that’s the backdrop.

“What is the reality? I don’t know any time in our history that the Chinese government overthrew an African government. I don’t know of any instance in our history where Chinese assistance to Africa or any other country has been dependent on the people’s choice of a type of government and so on,” he said.

Kwesi Pratt Jr. further stated that it is clear that the support that comes from China, unlike from other Western countries, is without conditionalities.

He, however, said that using the example of railway line construction in Ghana, it is clear that they are done with the intention of taking out the country’s wealth.

He described this as how the Western world is neo-colonizing the continent.

“That’s the difference. The West pretends to be giving us aid, but it’s always conditioned on many things. In Ghana, you find that all the railway lines start from areas of concentration of wealth, where we have bauxite, where we have timber, where we have diamond, where we have gold, and so on. They start from there, and where do they end up? They end up in the ports.

“So, the whole development orientation is to take out wealth; that’s the whole development orientation. The railway lines tell this story adequately,” he explained.

AE/SEA