First Published on March 3, 2017

Sometime last week, Samia Nkrumah made a statement on ‘The Lounge’ show. She alleged Ghana rigs Ghana’s economic system to favor its industries. She specifically accused America of doing the job. 

She didn’t provide any evidence to back her allegations, and I doubt she has one to that effect. But I thought her statement should have generated some discussion. I thought the network would have made a news item out of it to create some conversation on the issue because I recall her saying, “We can’t be solving the problem if we don’t talk about it,” but that didn’t happen. 

Ghana turns 60 in a few days, but my country’s not reflecting its development. We still depend heavily on the export of raw materials such as cocoa, gold, bauxite, and, recently, crude oil. It’s no secret that the areas where these materials are found remain the poorest in the country. The prices of these commodities are determined on the world market controlled by the West, and my intuition tells me they always quote prices that benefit them. 

For some reason, successive governments haven’t felt the need to create an atmosphere that will equip their citizens to be self-sufficient and contribute meaningfully to nation-building. The nation has failed to properly educate its citizens, create an education model that will widen their worldview, instill a sense of nationalism, and make them problem solvers. Instead, governments have operated a colonial system that makes the people overly dependent on the state for jobs and other needs. 

Ghana’s fiscal sector is heavily controlled by foreign Multinational Corporations that have clever means of evading tax, with corrupt politicians and authorities facilitating this evasion. Club beer, the nation’s popular beer, is produced by ABL, owned by the brewing giant SABMiller, with its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, headquartered in Belgium. You see the complexity of this ownership tree. 

FYI, ABL is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange at GHc 0.10 per share, while its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, is listed on the NYSE at US$105.85 a share. ABL is the second-largest brewery in Ghana, after Guinness Ghana, with whom it shares a monopolized market. It is the same story with other consumer goods, health products, mining, petroleum, real estate, hotel, and retail.

The over-reliance on the government to meet the needs of the people, along with corruption, mismanagement, and pressure from other invisible forces, has made it impossible for governments to create an environment where local businesses can thrive and compete with their multinational counterparts. Owning and operating a manufacturing company in Ghana is capital-intensive, so only the big guys survive. 

The lack of appropriate policies and enforcement has also opened up the retail market, which is crowded with foreign businesses that stock their shops with goods produced outside the country, leaving our currency at a hairline in the currency market storm. 

Today, the government talks about industrializing the country through a public-private partnership. They plan to do this amid economic hardship, characterized by high inflation, unreliable and expensive power, significant indebtedness, poor transport infrastructure, and a local market with low purchasing power. So even if this industrialization happens through PPP, I guess you know the role of the private sector in that equation. Plus, in this new age, more factories do not translate to more jobs. Technology got the jobs.  

I am no expert in economics, finance, or governance. But I have a fair knowledge of the history of developed nations, and our country’s trend does not lead to a progressive and sovereign destination. I can’t prcan’tamia’s Samia’s “system” accusa” io,n but look around you, and you will see it operatIfnd iare interested inst of this nation, our generation, and the nthemustve to familiarize ourselves with this isdiscussabout it, and waysmeans to shut it down.