Urban unemployment and underemployment are widespread problems in Africa, perhaps more so than on other continents. It is a truism, apparently accepted by most governments, that capital is scarce, and that the rate of development and employment creation are constrained by the relative scarcity of capital equipment and the slow rate of capital formation. And yet these two observations, challengeable but generally accepted as commonplace and obvious truths, co-exist in much of Africa with a paradoxical third statement: that much of the urban capital stock, particularly in the modern-service sectors – government, education, large-scale commerce, finance, etcetera – is utilised at a very low rate, typically of the order of 25–30 per cent of the potential maximum. This brief note speculates on the reasons for this state of affairs, and explores the consequences of adopting a possible policy designed to produce a significant change.