Factors Militating Against Ghana's Development

Comments ( 1 )

NEWS COMMENTARY ON WHY AID HAS NOT WORKED AND THE NEED TO SUPPORT HOME GROWN POLICES TO MOVE GHANA FORWARD

When the Bretton woods Institutions began doling out aid and other forms of handouts to developing countries in the 1960s in the name of industrialisation, many were those who anticipated massive development through rapid expansion of Ghana’s economy within a few years.

Such optimists were right considering the success story of aid in rebuilding countries like the US, France, Denmark and the Netherlands since the birth of the IMF and World Bank in the 1940s. Sadly the story is different in Ghana and many countries in Africa with many pessimists citing unfavourable conditionalties as the main factor.

After aid failed in industrialising Ghana in the 1960s, the Bretton Woods Institution continued to dole out aid and grants in the 1970s but this time around as a solution to fighting poverty. In the 1980s, stabilization and structural adjustment were the conditionalities while democracy and good governance were the ingredients in the 1990s. Yet the desired development eluded Ghana. Not even debt cancellation and its attendant benefits in 2000 could do the trick.

The question is what is so mysterious about Ghana that not even free money could turn around the fortunes of the economy. As early as 1965, Ghana had received as much as 90million US dollars in aid flows.

The trend continued and by the year 2000 when the country went HIPC, many people in rural Ghana were still competing with goats and pigs for drinking water whilst basic necessities like three square meals a day remained a major headache.

Today the West has successfully invigorated our taste for foreign goods and by far inhibited the expansion of the local economy and rendered our currency unstable. Is it not sad that with all the abundant natural and human resources, couple with political stability and broad economic experience, Ghana cannot still boast of guaranteed economic prospects without resorting to the IMF and the World Bank?

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda possibly got it right when he remarked years ago that with more than 300billion UD dollars disbursed to Africa since 1970, there is little to show for it in terms of economic growth and human development.

A school of thought has argued that the Colonial powers delineated African countries, established political structures and fashioned bureaucracies that have proven over the years to be fundamentally incompatible with the African way of life hence the continuous underdevelopment.

Others have cited geographical and topographic factors for the cycle of poverty in the Continent. The causes may be many but regardless of how one looks at it, it is time we stopped blaming our woes on who caused it and start thinking about how it can be reversed.

At least Ghana has a semblance of the legal and political institutions that are conducive for investment. We must all help ensure that all leakages in public finances are sealed, flush out foreigners in retail business, improve sanitation, and more importantly reduce corruption.

We must all begin to patronize made- in- Ghana goods and services while suggesting ways of perfecting local products. We cannot continue to stock our homes with virtually everything foreign and expect our currency to remain stable and life bearable for us.

If we think Ghana first and eschew mediocrity and parochial interests, we would soon see and have a Ghana where all citizens can perfectly participate in the country’s economic prosperity with true sense of nationalism, and watch the current state of divisive and ethnic politics, indiscipline, sabotage, and sheer greed evaporate for good.

There is ample evidence to show that no political party can change the country’s fortunes until we begin to change our mindsets. How on earth can we have ghost names on our pay roll in this digital age?

How come there are massive leakages in our ports? Why has corruption become so endemic in the civil service when Christianity and Islam appear to be at their peak? Like it or not we shall all account for our deeds on judgement day, but for now one would call on President Mahama and his team to reconsider some of the measures that have brought untold hardships to the people.

In a country where cost of living continue to rise by the day due to high inflation and interest rates, over taxation of only a small segment of the populace, worsening energy crisis, the least Ghana can do is to allow the continuous importation of items such as toothpicks, matches, chalk, old frozen chicken, and sadly used newspapers, and expect manna to fall from heaven.

At this stage all of us are spectators because we are watching what is happening and at the same time agents because others are watching us. A word to the wise, we have long been told, is enough. Long live Ghana.

BY GEORGE ASEKERE, A JOURNALIST