Ezekiel Nyoni

Unfortunately this cartoon taken from the internet depicts the true reality thats threatening human jobs

Written by  Ezekiel Nyoni

A lot has been said about Africa being behind in terms of the application of the recent and modern technologies. Some folks have blamed African traditions and ideologies as the reason why some of the technologies have not yet been accepted in these communities. Some blame has also been put on the local politicians and governments for their fail in putting policies and laws that promote and govern these technologies. Yes as Africans we want to feel as part of the rest of the world, Yes we want smart cities, Yes we want smart production systems, Yes we want the convenience Uber brings to our lives. But the big question is are African societies benefiting from these modern technologies?

New technologies are mainly automated and effortless which is as a result of big corporations wanting to do away with labour intensive processes in their day to day business runnings to maximise profits by reducing labour costs. However, Africa is a special case, already it is home to high levels of unemployment and impoverished societies in the world. During one of his interviews with the CNBC Elon Musk, who is the founder and CEO of SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX, suggested that because of the automation of things there will come a point in time when the governments will have to have to sustain the livelihoods of its citizens through what he called a universal  basic income. In South Africa universal basic income is just a fancy word for the Social Grants which are provided by SASSA. If South Africa probably the largest economy in Africa according to 2016 statistics is basically struggling to provide social grants for about a 3^rd of its total population and with the rise of unemployment rates one can only imagine if the implementation of these new technologies is not regulated the impact it will have on ordinary people’s livelihoods and the government budget.

Many may argue that the development of technology is for the better. But at the moment the application of these technologies is not being aligned to labour laws and it is changing the workforce within large corporations to benefit a few individuals as more get retrenched or downsized and the few get few more millions in their financial portfolios. Growing up, bank tellers used to help you out with almost every transaction the bank had to offer now we do EFTs, mobile banking, ATMs can do almost everything the bank teller used to do.  We have more banks now but they are having fewer employees by night. For a continent with high youth unemployment figures already, legislative measures have to be taken on how these new tech systems should be implemented as far as labour security is concerned. Because very soon these companies will have all the tech but no customers as there will be no one affording to use their technology as they will be jobless. And government budgets will dwindle as taxpayers will get lesser and lesser.

Global migration is the main talk in all corners of the world at the moment. Some countries South Africa included have moved swiftly by coming up with legislative measures to protect the job security of the natural citizens of the respective countries and protect the immigrants from used for cheap labour. But that has not stopped companies from retrenching due to automation of their systems. At this rate, unemployment is going to increase drastically the xenophobia social unrest is going to evolve into robot-phobia. Most of these technologies emanate from other continents mainly Europe. Thus, we have systems designed and developed in Europe, a robot manufactured there, the software used to operate the robot, developed there and then applied in Africa at the expense of the local labour market. Henceforth, for African communities to really benefit from these technologies there should be laws on what percentage of the output work should be done by robots and another allocation for humans. Otherwise, the 2nd Colonisation of Africa is coming not in the form of land but this time Technology is the face of it all.

On March the 10^th 2017 some people had to miss their flights and some probably cancelled their business trips as metered taxi drivers blocked the highway to OR Tambo international Airport the biggest in South Africa and the biggest air travel connecting hub in Southern Africa. This was because the metered taxi drivers were demanding that Uber be regulated as it was killing their business by charging about 50% less on their routes. No doubt taxi booking mobile apps are the future because now taxify and jozibear are starting to tap into the market as well. But this is not new in 2009 we had a number of protests by minibus taxi owners and drivers across South Africa protesting against BRT systems (Rea Vaya, My Citi) as they felt they were going to threaten the source of their livelihoods. The problem with these new technologies is that they are being implemented without proper legislation to protect the livelihoods of those already depending on the income of the existing systems.

 There has been a big talk about sustainability, and these days the word sustainable is being overused and abused. The United Nations is talking about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), businesses are talking about sustainable solutions, be it innovators, educators, entrepreneurs; they are all using the word all the time. But the question is, How sustainable are the sustainable solutions if their sustainability takes away the sole source of income in African Societies’ livelihoods which are their jobs?

  A very close friend of mine always say that the problem with Africa is we have not yet get the basics right hence Africa in adopting the new technologies straight on is like swallowing your food without chewing; it will choke you out and sometimes it will take you some time to recover. And the basics Africa has to solve first before adopting new technologies is to address issues of poverty alleviation, access to safe water, nutritious food, access to electricity, roads, access to the internet, education, laws to protect their own citizens from exploitation just to name a few. Without addressing these social issues Africa will not fully benefit from the potential these 21st-century technologies can offer.