Let Us Leverage Continent-Wide Goodwill For Ghana To Boost Exports And Create A Jobs Galore

One is often baffled  by the  fact that our nation's ruling elites seldom see striking bilateral relationships with all the nations in sub-Saharan Africa, as an effective  means of boosting Ghanaian  exports across the continent - and giving younger generation Ghanaians the  opportunity to interact with citizens of sister African nations:  each one of which Ghana must have free-trade and visa-free agreements with.  


Naturally, to ensure that such visa-free travel does not become a means for Ghanaian criminals to extend their footprint-of-crime to sister nations that our nation has such agreements with, and vice-verse, all nationals entering both nations must immediately  report to the   immigration and national police authorities, to have their fingerprints and DNA samples taken. They must also be required to provide a verifiable address they will stay at throughout their trip, with the proviso that they must inform the authorities each time they change accommodation.


 The incredible energy one feels when out and about in urban Ghana, needs to be harnessed. If we had a  visa-free agreement and tariff-free trade relations  with Rwanda, for example, could young Ghanaian entrepreneurs not end up making  the traditional  northern smock for men a top fashion item in that nation?


If such agreements existed between us and other  sister African nations, could some enterprising young seamstress not set up a fashion house with an Angolan  partner - and employ Ghanaians to sew kaba-and-slit apparel  for Angola's fairest damsels, I ask? Ditto the brilliant young jewelry designers who work with gold in chic parts of urban Ghana? And could companies like GCB and SIC not become African giants by  opening subsidiaries across the continent?


As a result of tariff-free bilateral trade agreements with each of the member states of the African Union (AU),  Ghana's wonderful world-beating dark chocolate produced by the Cocoa Processing Company, could indeed become a favourite across Africa. Kasapreko's assorted drinks, Special Ice mineral water, the products of GIHOC Distilleries, to mention a few of Ghanaian industry's finest, are all  world-class  products that could become household names in nations across Africa - if we had a bilateral tariff-free trade agreement in place with each AU member-state. Ghana must breathe new life into such  existing agreements with that in mind - and sign  new ones where none exist today.


 Ghana must not wait for a continental common market to come into being before making pan-African trade a pillar of its economic transformation. Whiles we await an African common market, let us use bilateral tariff-free trade agreements to gain entry into the markets of  all the members of the AU: regional free-trade areas notwithstanding. Our nation has tremendous goodwill across  Africa, as a result of the impact of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's activism for the pan-African cause, during his years in power in Ghana. Let us leverage that goodwill to boost our export trade and create a jobs galore in our country into the bargain. A word to the wise...