State Affairs Ghana Way Forward
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The State Of Affairs In Ghana And The Way Forward - 02-20-2015 by IMANI News Room - IMANI Center for Policy & Education - http://imanighana.com The State Of Affairs In Ghana And The Way Forward by IMANI News Room - Friday, February 20, 2015 http://imanighana.com/state-affairs-ghana-way-forward/ By Franklin Cudjoe | IMANI Center for Policy and Education I spent the greater part of yesterday in good company and had great conversations in three separate meetings about the future of this country. One of the meetings had visiting senior public officials from the West. Here are some of the points I picked up. 1. The country is broke monetarily and in terms of ideas, but there are good ideas to fix it if only leadership will listen. 2. The state of the economy will worsen with power outages. Some believed it will not be solved entirely until the next elections, IMF deal notwithstanding. 3. The IMF deal is the only hope Ghana has if she will be taken serious 4. Borrowing has reached dizzying heights with almost Ghc80bn in total domestic and external debts. We are inching closer to HIPC status. 5. It most likely Ghana’s books show precariously dangerous deficits than officially told. 6. We should not have borrowed at 8% to 'invest' in an infrastructure fund when we had idle government assets that could have been collaterised to raise a $1bn for the infrastructure fund. 4. The abuse of the purse especially payroll fraud and a non-performing Auditor-General do not give hope in our quest to fight corruption. 5. The vain glorification of partisan political colouration at the expense critically needed human resource especially in the appointment of office holders, board members. In the end we all suffer. 6. Petty thievery in almost all public institutions seeded with money the latest being MASLOC. 7. Electoral reforms must be speedily implemented, but political actors do not think the current 'untrusted' electoral commission and 'perceived bias Judiciary' will make us realise the full benefits of reforms. 8. The Boko Haram scare could consume us at elections. This view was disputed by a Nigerian official involved in peace building efforts in West Africa. 1 / 3
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The state of affairs of Ghana's economy
Transcript of State Affairs Ghana Way Forward
The State Of Affairs In Ghana And The Way Forward - 02-20-2015by IMANI News Room - IMANI Center for Policy & Education - http://imanighana.com
The State Of Affairs In Ghana And The Way Forward
by IMANI News Room - Friday, February 20, 2015
http://imanighana.com/state-affairs-ghana-way-forward/
By Franklin Cudjoe | IMANI Center for Policy and Education
I spent the greater part of yesterday in good company and had great conversations in three separatemeetings about the future of this country. One of the meetings had visiting senior public officials from theWest.
Here are some of the points I picked up.
1. The country is broke monetarily and in terms of ideas, but there are good ideas to fix it if onlyleadership will listen.
2. The state of the economy will worsen with power outages. Some believed it will not be solvedentirely until the next elections, IMF deal notwithstanding.
3. The IMF deal is the only hope Ghana has if she will be taken serious
4. Borrowing has reached dizzying heights with almost Ghc80bn in total domestic and externaldebts. We are inching closer to HIPC status.
5. It most likely Ghana’s books show precariously dangerous deficits than officially told.
6. We should not have borrowed at 8% to 'invest' in an infrastructure fund when we had idlegovernment assets that could have been collaterised to raise a $1bn for the infrastructure fund.
4. The abuse of the purse especially payroll fraud and a non-performing Auditor-General do not givehope in our quest to fight corruption.
5. The vain glorification of partisan political colouration at the expense critically needed humanresource especially in the appointment of office holders, board members. In the end we all suffer.
6. Petty thievery in almost all public institutions seeded with money the latest being MASLOC.
7. Electoral reforms must be speedily implemented, but political actors do not think the current 'untrusted' electoral commission and 'perceived bias Judiciary' will make us realise the fullbenefits of reforms.
8. The Boko Haram scare could consume us at elections. This view was disputed by a Nigerianofficial involved in peace building efforts in West Africa.
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The State Of Affairs In Ghana And The Way Forward - 02-20-2015by IMANI News Room - IMANI Center for Policy & Education - http://imanighana.com
9. Ghana's GNPC is so rich now and able to make deals happen. The Turkish barge will be sortedthrough GNPC's and ECOBANK guarantees. Only it may take about six to eight months for thebarge to get hooked into our grid.
10. The MCC money is still waiting to drawn for preparation of reforms at Ghana's ElectricityCompany (ECG). I believe there is enough money to pay retrenchment of at least 4,000 of the5,000 workforce of ECG.
11. The Minister for power must make a final decision/declaration of gong full privatisation of ECG.The delay is political and costing Ghana each day.
12.. Ghana's National Security is getting more professional, conducting surveys about important subjectswithout bias, let or hindrance.
Some possible way out :
1. The greatest option we have as a country going into an election with an IMF deal to match is forgreater political dialogue.
2. The trade unions and indeed Ghanaians will have to hear different uplifting ideas on how to endthe economic mess. They will fancy recouping at least Ghc3bn of looted funds in various scams.This could buy hope for the current government.
3. The political parties must be influenced even externally to keep the peace in all instances.Internally we must force political dialogues.
4. Civil society must ensure the next election is issue-driven, but only when they have the manifestosof political parties six months in advance.
5. Beef up the country's security. It will not be enough to have weapon-less Policemen and womenguarding important buildings and senior officers.
6. Public interest litigation will force non-performing institutions to sit up but these things costmoney.
7. We need an integrated national ID system that could have multiple uses. Perhaps, we need to talkto Nigeria and MasterCard on how to get it a national ID project right. The country must havecontrol of the data and local content policies must ensure at least a 30% partnership.30%-70%partnership with any foreign company.
8. We truly need a deregulated upstream and downstream petroleum sector. Those oil blocspurchased by questionable characters for less now face herculean task developing the blocs. Thebill for developing each one costs upwards of $100m but now more difficult with lower oil prices.The downstream petroleum sector needs total deregulation to avoid price fixing by the NationalPetroleum Authority.
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The State Of Affairs In Ghana And The Way Forward - 02-20-2015by IMANI News Room - IMANI Center for Policy & Education - http://imanighana.com
Franklin Cudjoe is Executive director and President of IMANI.
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