GHANA MUST STEP OUT OF THE SHADOW OF CONVENTIONAL ECONOMIC THINKING!

The recent meeting in Tanzania of finance ministers from Africa, which was sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), generated a great deal of media coverage across the continent, and the rest of the world. Many Africans were hoping that some new thinking about the economic future of our continent would emerge from that meeting.

Critics of the IMF and World Bank, say that the global recession appears to be seen by the two multi-lateral organisations, as a golden opportunity to get African nations under their sway, yet again. However, it is important that those nations that do fall into the arms of the two institutions resist some of the “conditionalities” that are attached to their loans: such as selling profit-making state-owned assets – whiles many Western nations are busy pumping public cash into private companies in partial-nationalizations.

Clearly, the two multilateral institutions offer nations like Ghana a better alternative to our nation’s daft and shortsighted forays into the piranha-infested capital markets of the (pre-recession) Western world. Those senseless and expensive forays only benefitted the fat-cats in our financial services sector, and the crooks amongst our previous rulers.

Incidentally, we could have borrowed the same amounts from China for far less, than issuing sovereign bonds at idiotic rates of interest to canny Western investors – just to benefit the craving for kickbacks by the powerful crooks in the previous regime: whose cronies in our financial services sector earned huge fees from the issuance of those bonds for doing absolutely nothing.

Perhaps the time has come for the new government to find out precisely who and who bought those Ghanaian sovereign bonds that were issued abroad – and to make sure that there is no “Kweku-Ananse” money-laundering, of the (to quote some of Ghana’s cynics) “Eland-NIB-Ali-Baba-magic” variety, which sees our nation paying zillions of dollars in regular interest payments to legal fronts for international crooks.

But I digress. It is important that in dealing with the World Bank and the IMF, Ghana makes it absolutely clear to both institutions that it cannot, and will not, sell profit-making state-owned assets in our financial services sector, under any circumstances – as such a retrograde step is untenable and would be politically suicidal for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime of President Mills.

For those Ghanaians who think creatively, far from it being a gloomy period, this current global recession offers nations like Ghana a rare opportunity to take a fresh look at their developmental processes. For example, why should our present leaders repeat the same mistake today, which African leaders made in the 1960’s, when they failed to seize the opportunity to buy into Nkrumah’s vision of an African common-market – because it came together with what they saw as his near-impossible dream of a continental government for a United States of Africa?

We need not seek a continental government just yet, but if we had an African common market today, dear reader, would factories across Africa not be able to add value to the continent’s many natural resources and successfully sell them across Africa? Would that not have kept the recession at bay somewhat, today – and saved those now being thrown out of work, as export orders from outside the continent shrink and dry up: thus leading to the closure of many factories?

Ghana’s leaders must seize the opportunity that the existing goodwill for Nkrumah’s Ghana all over the Africa of today, offers them, and act quickly to strike bilateral free-trade deals with all the nations of Africa – and leverage that goodwill to spread the footprint of corporate Ghana (both state-owned and private), across Africa. Would our many industries not be able to take advantage of the economies of scale offered by expanded markets to compete effectively all over Africa, and take on more workers in the process?

Above all, our leaders must stop begging visiting foreign dignitaries “to come to our aid” in order to improve our agricultural sector. They must rather think creatively themselves to improve the productivity of our agricultural sector. At a time of global climate change, we need not waste precious time reinventing the wheel to improve our agricultural sector.

Ghana’s leaders must simply be creative and take a good look at the developmental-template offered by the South African sustainable livelihoods organisation, Sustainable Villages Africa (SVA). If they have the political will to do so, they can replicate that developmental-model here with SVA’s help to transform rural Ghana into thriving farming areas, with prosperous rural populations – in public private partnerships (PPP) between district assemblies, SVA, and farmer-groups.

Tallow Oil is apparently building a mini oil refinery in Uganda. Since China still regards Ghana as a special friend in Africa, because of the goodwill that remains from Nkrumah’s close friendship with Chinese leaders, we must take advantage of that goodwill to help us grow the energy sector of our economy rapidly: the global recession notwithstanding.

What stops us from approaching China and proposing that we issue sovereign bonds to them in exchange for their funding the building of oil refineries and natural gas plants here, for example? Will the two nations not mutually benefit if they could collaborate to build such plants – to export petroleum products to Africa and beyond: in joint-ventures between the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the best-resourced of China’s state-owned energy companies?

Rather than twiddle their fingers fretting about the lack of credit worldwide, our leaders must see this recession as an opportunity to strengthen our ties with China. If they did that, could we not leverage our relationship with China to empower the state-owned housing delivery companies in Ghana, to partner their Chinese equivalents: to build hundreds of thousands of good quality affordable housing using the PPP model in all the districts in Ghana?

Could those houses not be rented out by the district assemblies to Ghanaians who cannot afford to own their own homes, presently? Will the building of those affordable houses not create scores of jobs nationwide, as well as provide all the district assemblies in Ghana with a new and sustainable revenue-source: their own housing-stock?

At a time of global climate-change, rather than begging high government officials from France and Germany to “come to our aid,” why do our leaders not ask those foreign dignitaries to link up the Forestry Division of the Forestry Commission (as well as private Ghanaian tree-planting companies accessing the new teak-growing initiative being started by the government), with corporate clients of carbon-offsetting organisations in Germany and France, wishing to fund tree-growing projects overseas, to neutralize some of their corporate carbon-footprint?

Will such collaboration not provide money to Ghana’s teak growers and provide our nation with precious foreign exchange too – thus improving Ghana’s GDP growth rates in a sustainable and green fashion? Is that not a far more sensible way to proceed, than resorting to the kind of humiliating begging-bowl diplomacy we see some of our leaders engaging in ad nauseam, on our television screens? Ditto exploring the possibility of designating the teak-growing initiative as projects under Ghana’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), in any successor climate-change agreement, to the Kyoto treaty?

The change promised by the NDC isn’t going to happen if our new leaders don’t think creatively and opt to stick to conventional economic thinking, instead – particularly at a time when the world is in the grip of such a severe recession. This is precisely the time to think creatively and lower tax rates for corporate Ghana, by bringing it down to less than 10 per cent, whiles passing tough new laws to deal with tax evaders. That will automatically widen the tax net and encourage payment. Will that not immediately put our nation on the world map – as the nation with the lowest corporate tax rate in the world? And will that not spur some investment here even at a difficult time like this?

Whiles such a review of the tax regime is seen to by the new NDC regime, perhaps the new government could also put money directly into the pockets of all Ghanaian workers and encourage them to work even harder – by being bold and finally abolishing personal income-tax in our country (fulfilling a campaign promise without stoking up inflation!). Surely, that will make Ghana a truly attractive gateway to Africa, and make this the destination of choice for all wishing to do business in Africa?

And if they permit all Ghanaian workers to retire on their salaries, as well as provide a social pension to all Ghanaians over 65, regardless of whether they contributed to one or not, will that not help create a fairer and more civilized society in Ghana? Is that not infinitely better than widening the gap between the well-off and the rest of society, by paying huge sums in ex-gratia payments to over-pampered politicians – most of whom were in reality corrupt and self-seeking individuals who never toiled to improve the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians whiles in office: although showered with perks worth zillions during their tenure?

I share the view of those who posit that the less ”awoof” money we have available for politicians to waste (in ostentatious lifestyles), and rogue public servants to steal, the better off our nation will be. In my humble opinion, having less money ‘sloshing’ about the system, is the perfect way to have “lean government” – and end the ruthless dog-eat-dog kleptocracy, which our democracy has sadly evolved into. A word to the wise…