Having lived in southern Africa for 14 years, I can confirm that this is tragically common.

One big problem is that modern capitalism is intensely individualistic, as is Western culture in general. African culture, on the other hand, is completely community-focussed. The individual does not exist apart from the community (family/village), therefore there is no concept of "private property".

This makes for a lot of frustration in intercultural interactions between Westerners and Africans. It's also the reason why almost all successful local development projects target the entire community, not individuals.

(This is not to judge one culture or the other! Just to point out that an economic system developed in one culture cannot be expected to work without problems in a very different culture.)