Re: “Ghana’s GDP underestimated?”

"Dr Amoako said Ghana was 88th out or more than 100 countries in terms of infrastructural development and added that although the banking sector had become dynamic, accessing affordable credit was still a problem."

"He called for a dynamic shift in the economy and advocated that the government should be the nerve centre of economic transformation."

What a very wise man, this Dr. Amoako, is - for, in stating the importance of state intervention in the economy (something demonstrated so amply by Singapore, Malaysia and the regime of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah: all of whom used the power of the nation-state, to successfully build their nations), he hit the proverbial nail on the head, squarely.

Sadly, since the overthrow of Nkrumah, with the exception of the regime of General Acheampong, who used the power of the nation-state to empower Ghanaians, to seize "the commanding heights of the economy" and made us self-sufficient in food production (and even made it possible for us to be food exporters for a period in our history), we have had the amazing situation, in which although the men and women running our nation, live the life of Riley, at taxpayers' expense (with servants, and other living expense items such as fuel, water, electricity and telephone bills, all paid for, by hard-pressed taxpayers', many of whom can barely make ends meet, themselves); yet, even as they sponge off poor taxpayers, they still have the gall, to constantly denigrate the philosophy of state-intervention in the economy, in order to promote economic growth.

They have all been high-profile African apostles of "trickle-down-economics" - for whom the "free market" holds the key to our economic salvation: largely because that has been the mantra of their masters in the West.

Today, we have all seen how when the crunch came, and the very survival of their economies was threatened, those self-same neo-liberals in the West, did not hesitate in getting their nation-states to intervene massively, in their economies - using hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, to bailout banks and other financial institutions: to ensure the survival of their national economies.

Incredibly, our own local version of the neo-liberals of the Western world, are still bent on following the now-discredited "Reagan/Thatcherism" free-market ideology, of their Western soul-mates (perhaps slave masters, would be a more appropriate phrase, to describe those lackeys of the West, and stooges for neo-colonialism, the uncharitable amongst us, might say!), so slavishly.

Uniquely, amongst the members of our political class, they are a group of Ghanaians, who are simply incapable of any original thinking - and prefer to follow their Western paymasters slavishly: and without any reservations, at all (their decision to reverse a policy designed to protect Ghana's poultry industry, just because it threatened a lucrative export market for businesses in the jurisdiction of their lords and masters in the West, being an egregious example of this foolishness!).

They are determined to use the “sleight-of hand” economic paradigm that (in spite of the impressive GDP figures it produces from time to time) really only benefits a powerful and politically well-connected few in our country - and in reality, is simply impoverishing our nation (as vital and strategic national assets are sold for values far below their real net worth, to foreign carpetbaggers) and our people.

Amazingly, those self-same souls amongst our ruling elites, who personally benefit tremendously from being subsidized by the Ghanaian nation-state, with their cornucopia of expensive perks funded by taxpayers, simply fail to see the undoubted benefits of state intervention - and its ability to empower African societies to create wealth that gives all citizens (not just a powerful few with greedy ambitions), a good quality of life.

Yet, the enormity of the task we face in our country is such that we have no alternative, but to use the power of the Ghanaian nation-state, if we are to create Africa's equivalent, of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia – and move rapidly away from the present ghastly situation in our country: which is akin to that of the cruel and monstrous "robber-baron" days, when exploitative and selfish-capitalism, was at its apogee, in early 20th-century America.

Why, did our leaders not see the dramatic demonstration of the failure of the market of recent times, as the economies of the wealthy nations of the Western world, unraveled before our very eyes, at the speed of lightning? Are they not inspired by the empowering nature of state intervention - which has so dramatically been used by all of those major Western nations: to save their countries from ruination?

Do they not understand that it was the same unfathomable greed that we are witnessing here (by our local apostles of free markets and their favourite regime-crony oligarchs), that was indulged in for decades, by the major players, in the financial services sectors of Western nations, which caused their financial markets to meltdown so quickly, when their comeuppance finally came?

Today, as those wealthy nations gradually tip into recession, is it not patently clear to all, that that recession would have been far more catastrophic than even the Great Depression of the 1920's was, if their governments' hadn't had the good sense to put aside their ideological straightjacket of neo-liberalism, and intervened - acting rapidly to organize bailouts for their private financial institutions: with taxpayers’ money?

Just what will it take for the clueless masters of the universe into whose greedy, dishonest and incompetent hands, our country has now fallen, to think outside the box, for once - and move away from the “rigid-mental-box” that they are currently so sadly constricted by (figuratively speaking)?

If we do not come out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking (with its idiotic over-reliance on textbook theories about markets that aren't, and will never be, perfect, in the real world of the hell-holes of urban and rural Ghana), we shall continue to witness and experience the apparent paradox, of reading countless reports of glowing GDP growth rate figures, recorded in a country, in which, as the politically well-connected and powerful few, grow fabulously wealthier every day, ordinary people's quality of life, plummets: in inverse proportion to the stratospheric heights to which the personal net worth of those prospering mightily from those brilliant GDP growth rate figures, rises to.

No matter what the well-paid regime spin-doctors (including those benefiting from the nepotism of our “Hypocrite-in-Chief” in cushy sinecures as “minister councilors” in our diplomatic missions overseas!) tell us, and the world, the reality of our present circumstances, is that we are, in fact, a very poor developing nation, which is dependent on the charity of foreign donors - and is lumbered with the "trickle-down" paradigm of economic development that its clueless leaders insist on using to develop their nation - mostly because it personally benefits them, the scions of their family clans and their siblings, and the powerful and crooked, tax-dodging, regime-oligarchs.

Ordinary people will simply tell you, if you ask them, dear reader, that the prosperity of the SUV owners driving into town from their Hollywood-style mansions, in Ghana’s swankiest suburbs, has unfortunately eluded them – and that in spite of the “rubbing-salt-into-wounds” insults of the dishonest and greedy ones amongst their leaders, who accuse them of being “lazy” and “envious”, they are neither: and simply await the same opportunities that those benefiting from the nepotism of our incompetent rulers, get, to come their way, too.

The present reliance on “sleight-of-hand” economics, with its mumbo-jumbo “trickle-down” ethos, is a recipe for disaster. We must think instead, of a greener sustainable development paradigm, which measures the progress of our nation in terms of the improvement of the quality of life of the vast majority of our people, as well as the preservation, at a time of global climate change, of our nation’s biodiversity.

We must stop deluding ourselves that because we can point to the super wealth of those who prosper in an iniquitous and inequitable system: one based on an ethos of greed and selfishness, it means that we are progressing. Period. Hmmm,Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia?
Let us now touch briefly, dear reader, on the reported position of the spokesperson of the party in opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), which the GNA report quotes, thus: “Mr Moses Asaga said the book set out the problems and promise into the future.

He said the United States government had demonstrated that state intervention was needed in the distribution of wealth.

He said the recent financial crisis in the global economy had given an indication that the market was not always right and underscored the need to move the economy from aid dependency.

On the emerging oil industry, Mr. Asaga called on the government to increase its stake in the industry beyond the payment of royalties.” End of quotation.

Well, at least Mr. Moses Asaga’s sentiments make sense to someone like me - and if his party, which also championed the lunacy of swallowing hook line and sinker, the self-serving strictures (of the accomplices in crime against Ghanaians and their nation: the agents of the Washington neo-liberal ideologues - led by the ruthless and anti-democratic Dick Cheney, the present US vice president), the World Bank and the IMF, when it was in power, now also apparently intends to follow some of the ideas Nkrumah espoused all those years ago, and used successfully, to build a more humane society (than the present “dog-eat-dog” madness, which is the defining characteristic, of our society today), then there is hope for our nation, yet, perhaps!

Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!