The Panacea For Resolving Ghana's Economic Challenges That Its Politicians Never Mention

President Mahama is reported to have stated recently that Ghana will have to keep on "borrowing" money to modernise and expand its infrastructure. And in a public lecture a few days ago, a leading member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Bawumia, also outlined a raft of measures that  he says ought to be taken to arrest the fall of the Ghana cedi and improve the national economy.

The extraordinary thing  is that virtually all the members of our nation's  political class know the perfect solution to  our nation's economic challenges - yet it has never once been mentioned by any of them in public: Ghana sits atop of oil and gas deposits worth some US$160 billions - enough money to guarantee living standards for all of Ghana's  citizens, akin to that enjoyed by the citizens of oil-rich nations such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and for generations to come.

Those US$160 billions worth of oil and gas deposits belong to the sovereign people of Ghana - from whom it has been snatched by the employment of fraudulent agreements deliberately entered into by a few of their elected leaders.

The foreign oil companies whose use of sleight-of-hand tactics secured them those oil and gas deposits,  worth some US$160 billions,  are not impoverished entities - and neither are any of their shareholders poverty-stricken individuals facing imminent famine. Ghana must reclaim its birthright from them. Period.

Renegotiated oil agreements that are fair and  guarantee that the bulk of those US$160 billions will accrue to Ghana,  will neither be financially catastrophic,  nor an end-of-the-world-tragedy, for those foreign oil companies and their shareholders. So why are Ghana's leaders not moving to end an egregious injustice - which denies us cash to fund the transformation of our country into a developed nation, and prosperous society,  from our own resources?

The question the good people of Ghana ought to ponder is: if those elected leaders who signed those rip-off agrements had  a fiduciary duty to ensure that the bulk of those US$160 billions would accrue to the Republic of Ghana and its citizens, but failed to do so - because entering into  rip-off- agreements beneficial to foreign oil companies benefited them personally - why are President Mahama and Dr. Bawumia not protesting loudly  and demanding that those agreements must be renogotiated: so that proceeds from the sale of Ghanaian oil and gas  can be used to modernise and expand our infrastructure, as well as pay off Ghana's mountain of debt?

 Oil agreements guaranteeing Ghana the bulk  of those US$160 billions of oil revenues  will enable Ghana to establish a sovereign wealth fund - to provide income for the period when the oil and gas deposits are depleted. It will also enable Ghana to provide free education from kindergarten to tertiary level  for all Ghanaians with the aptitude to study. That will guarantee us a skilled workforce that is world-class and competitive.

 It will also enable the state to provide good quality housing for all Ghanaians who cannot afford to build or buy their own homes, and empower them to acquire their own homes - through social housing schemes in which paid-rent goes towards the total cost of purchasing a property. It will enable those who ordinarily would not be considered for mortgages to purchase their own properties.

 And we will also have access to some of the world's best public-sector healthcare facilities nationwide, if we had our fair share of God-given natural resources that actually  belong to Ghanaians and their nation, to fund the building of those healthcare facilities.

The panacea for overcoming the challenges preventing the transformation of the national economy,  and the evolution of Ghanaian society into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, is to renegotiate all the existing rip-off oil agreements that presently  only benefit the foreign oil companies - and sign new ones giving  Ghana full  ownership of all its oil and gas deposits: and guarantees it the bulk of the proceeds from the commercial exploitation of  those oil and gas fields.

 As things currently stand, over a thirty-year period, all that Ghana will receive out of those US$160 billions, will be a paltry US$20 billions. How can that be - when the total outlay the foreign oil companies will make to obtain the remaining US$140 billions,  will probably be less than US$10 billions? Incredible.

They must take us for the biggest fools on the surface of the planet Earth - which is why when the industry best practice is to build double-hulled floating production storage and offloading vessels (FPSO), the foreign oil companies operating off our shores opted for a single-hulled one, and will commence building a second one soon. Heaven help our coastal fishing communities, should an FPSO vessel in Ghanaian waters spring a leak.

It is time members of Ghana's political class addressed this all-important issue: for it is the panacea for resolving the challenges preventing the transformation of our national economy. It is only when the issue has been satisfactorily dealt with that Ghanaians  will be able to enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the world. And so to use local parlance, in view of all the above, one  humbly says  to President Mahama and Dr. Bawumia: "Gentlemen, over to you, Joe Lartey".  A word to the wise...