FUZHOU – African leaders have been advised to undertake scientific evaluation before embarking on projects to minimise wastages in public spending.
The Director-General, Fujian Provincial Foreign Affairs Office, Mr Song Kenning, gave the advice at Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, when he hosted a delegation of African journalists who were on tour of some parts of China on Tuesday.
Song also advised the leaders to ensure that they balanced their developmental projects between urban and rural areas to reduce pressure on infrastructure in the cities.
He told the visiting journalists that African leaders should re-order their priorities for sustainable development with emphasis on projects that had potential for long-term benefits.
He also counselled that leaders in African countries should always embark on projects that would benefit majority of the population and shun those that benefitted few.
Song said that in their endeavours, African leaders should always review their past actions to avoid repeating earlier mistakes.
He said it was difficult for any country to develop if its leaders did not embark on aggressive mechanisation of agriculture, industrial development and job creation.
“Mechanisation of agriculture is strategic in any country’s quest for food sufficiency and I think that is the path African countries should continue to pursue,” he said.
He said as an industrial province, the leadership of Fujian was making concerted efforts to ensure that the area remained pollution-free.
Some of the efforts, he said, included the closure of companies that failed to comply with government’s regulation on pollution control. (NAN)
