The Imperative for Economic Reform and Integrity in Ghana – A Call to Action

The signs of an economic meltdown had been on the wall for a long time. In due course, the portents of dark times became reality. Ghana’s economic structure is not fit for purpose. Alas, no single government since the inception of the Fourth Republic has marshalled the courage to mend the disrepair.

PNDC undertook structural reforms in the 1980s. It liberated the economy from state control. It sold government-owned companies. It opened the economy to international trade. Goods and services could flow in and out of Ghana with little restrictions, if any.

No more import licenses. No more extensive price controls. (Prices and Incomes Board went extinct.)

The vernacular consigned words like “kalabule”, and “essential commodities” into the scrap heap of history.

These reforms required our nation to embark on an expansive (in range and depth) export-driven economic development. This was not done in the 1980s. It has not been attempted since the Fourth Republic was established. Hence, the chaos.

We went HIPC. We learned to swallow our pride. But that was a temporary relief – a palliative is what it is, a palliative.

We entered the international capital markets at the time when metropolitan economies had low inflation, low interest rates. (In Japan interest rates were in the negative zone for multiple years.) So, we could borrow. And we kept borrowing and each time felt proud that our bond issues were oversubscribed. (In one instant, a koko and koose party was thrown to celebrate a successful bond sale.)

Soon, though, the chickens came home to roost. Inflation went up in the advanced economies. Interest rates were raised to contain inflation. Then a hubbub.

Immediately, developing nations that had been borrowing effortlessly realised they would not be able to meet their debt obligations.

Alarm bells were sounded loud and clear in all financial markets. Creditors went helter skelter.

Ghana, like many others, was frozen out of the markets. Onward we headed to IMF – the last recourse. IMF gives but it insists on austerity measures.

Citizens are hardly ever able to cope with the harsh measures that follow. The poor and made desperately poorer.

Now, no nation can sustain one-sided liberal economic reforms. To do so is to simply defy economic logic. But wittingly or unwittingly, Ghana has done exactly the illogical.

Besides the dire economic neglect that breeds dire consequences, we have elevated politics to levels of graft and rank corruption.

Politics, now a very crowded field, has assumed the stature of a celebrity cult. It is an easy way to amass wealth and fame. All for doing next to nothing.

Meanwhile, immiserating poverty threatens the political order. Social unrest and implosion are an imminent danger. If one is in doubt, one should look at what is happening in Kenya. There, the insensitive ruling elites are under siege.

All this calls for a new path to chart the troubled waters – of our political economy.

We have talent in the nation. But we are yet to forge a national character to burnish the talent that abounds.