This is an interesting analysis of the economic direction of Ghana by the
shadow treasurer of Ghana. The article was written for a Ghanaian cybergroup
but is pertinent to all and sundry. Enjoy.
Tom
***************************
Topic: We present the essay that sparked the longest running debate in the
GCG
Forum
KWAME PIANIM, Economist
Accra, Ghana, April 30, 2000
To those lighting candles, I must commend your efforts albeit belated. It is
better late than never. First of all let me congratulate the originators of
this Cybergroup. I hope you do not let it degenerate into a club of mutual
admiration. Please begin to analyse and criticise observations and solutions
emanating from those who share the same vision with us.
It is said that we learn first by doing, and then by learning from our
mistakes. I suspect the problem with Ghana is that we have so far failed to
get unto an upwardly ascending learning curve because we do not have the
institutional capability and capacity for learning from our history and past
mistakes. to do this we need to be a little less cavalier with facts.
Bread is said to be non-essential and therefore not food for the average
Ghanaian. Who are the people who consume the wheat products of some 200,000
tonnes of wheat annually? Who consume all the bread one is besieged with at
Nsawam en route to the centre of Ghana by road?
We can substitute imported hard wheat from North America by planting soft
wheat in the savanna areas of Ghana. We can use our import habits as a basis
for a holistic approach to development. Import the right planting material
for
rice and wheat, create the agricultural infrastructure in terms of
irrigation,
access to high yielding inputs, and suitable funding and access to land on
reasonably large scale, a system for encouraging the educated youth to
embrace
commercial and technology-based farming, and we can use agriculture as the
basis for industrialising the nation through agro-processing.
As long as we fail to solve the structural imbalance between government
perception of the people's demand for public expenditure and public revenue
generation capacity, the government will continue to crowd out the private
sector from the available credit. The government and the public sector
continue to corner some 70% of available commercial credit in the nation.
This
is at a time the private sector is supposed to be the engine of growth. In
the
sixties when public sector-led development was in vogue, the private sector
utilised some 45% of the available commercial credit in the nation. Over the
same period, household savings have shifted from being invested in time and
saving deposits of banks into treasury bills. So as long as government's
appetite for credit continues to dominate the monetary scene, returns on
t-bills will continue to be high and will attract not only banks but also
households to surrender their funds to government for largely
non-productivity
enhancing public outlays.
We need to create a national think tank to identify a "national"
"home-brewed"
development strategy for getting the nation to break out of the poverty trap
in which we are wallowing. This requires a listening government. A leader
prepared to adopt an inclusive approach to governance and ready to build
bridges for continuous dialogue with all shades of the political divide and
civil society. Will the winner-takes-all approach help us arrive at such a
happy state of affairs?
One needs sound political leadership, a manifesto outlining a viable
national
vision, a mission statement and objectives, and policy alternatives. The
strategy should include identifying target groups, their opinion leaders,
and
the most suitable communication instruments for getting views across to the
voting public. And of course to implement one's strategy and programmes one
needs both human and material resources. It is in the area of human and
material resources that non-governing African political parties need the
support of their citizens abroad.
It is my belief that the average citizen of Ghana who bears the brunt of bad
economic management and policy decision-making and who live with the
degradation of poverty every waking day, should not be blamed for our
inability to get bad governments changed. Opposing parties blame the lack of
resources for their inability to get the message of a viable
government-in-waiting to the grass root. But the truth is that villagers and
the urban poor are baffled by the fact that their political leaders fail to
ensure that their votes get counted and announced as they voted. They go
through intimidation and risk to life and limb to vote only to wake up to a
governing party that everybody claims not to have voted for!
How do we reassure the people that the political system is capable of
responding to their needs, and to their discernible, almost palpable desire
for change? A visible government-in-waiting and alternative programmes and
policies for addressing their survival concerns! I am afraid these two
minimum
conditions have not been fulfilled!
Some of the constraints in fulfilling these conditions could have been
minimized if the citizens abroad have taken on the role of human and
material
support a little bit more seriously and in a timely manner. My humble
submission is that the time has come for all those who love our nation to
look
inside ourselves for the missing link that contributes to our inability to
get
the right leadership in place, and to ensure that our leaders remain
accountable to us, and their policies focus on addressing the needs of the
poor and majority of our nation instead of catering the conspicuous and
extravagant consumption of a few. The problem may not be Rawlings,
Acheampong,
Limann, Busia or Nkrumah.
Almost all people cannot handle power. And people and their henchmen always
want to hang onto power and the ego-tripping it provides. And power sooner
than later corrupts. How do we put in place institutions, and the
checks-and-balances, which will restrain the natural tendencies for people
to
appropriate the economic powers of the nation for themselves and their
supporters, and to bribe or intimidate the rest of us successfully into
acquiescing accomplices? The checks and balances exist under democracy in
the
form that we have in Ghana. But where are the men and women of integrity to
man these institutions to ensure that the interest of the average citizen is
protected?
Not unlike Pogo, the thinking people of Ghana who have been around the world
looking for solutions to our problems, must have come to the incredulous but
true conclusion that, in Pogo's words, "We have met the enemy. And it is
US!"
We need to move from the "business-as-usual" mentality and approach and face
the realities of our condition if we want to contribute towards helping our
people break out of the poverty trap.
It is interesting that some of our colleagues abroad, who urge us to be bold
and to confront our rulers in these murderous conditions, sometimes use
pseudonyms in communicating your rally to battle. And your risk is minimal.
Your jobs and businesses do not depend on these regimes.
And how come the outside world has such a high opinion of the performance of
the Ghana not only in the field of the economy, but even in the fields of
human rights and governance? Poor communication?
Do we need time off to rethink our problems, identify our core national
interests, and put in place a national process for redesigning economic
management and political systems capable of supporting sustainable economic
development and political practices which will ensure that our governments
are
accountable to us and that we create a caring society where the needs of the
poorest and weakest among us get priority attention of our elite both in
politics and in business,
and civil society at large.
Let us forget looking for Messiahs who end up enslaving us. Let us all light
our little candles of brotherly/sisterly care, of personal accountability,
of
the cultivation and practice of democratic culture of tolerance and fair
play.
It is these millions of little candles that will light up our nation out of
the darkness and selfishness which engulf us now.
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