The flaw in the 2011 budget for a better Ghana
E. Ablorh-Odjidja

November 22, 2010

Seriously, a new format is needed for the reading of our national budgets. More important, we need to condemn any attempt that politicizes the budgetary process, instead of seeking the grand idea of boosting the national interest.

There used to be boldness, creativity and reasonableness in the ideas we propose in our national budgets, as ought to be.

Getting foreigners to dig our diminishing resources so that we can peg our development plans on the paltry revenue returns has no such boldness.

And, some of us are already tired of the propaganda invectives hurled at political opponents, each budgetary season, for squandering and mismanaging our wealth when they were in power.

We find it a waste of time when we hear these invectives on occasions like the reading of the national budget.

So two years into the NDC government’s rule and many budget readings later, we need to ask: Where is the boldness; where is that grand vision that produced the likes of Akosombo, Bui or Operation Feed Yourself?

In the reading of the Five Year Development Plan in 1959, after independence, the Nkrumah regime found no need to castigate the colonial government for a squandered fortune of our new nation.

Rather, the occasion was used to promote a vision; the merits of the entire Akosombo project.

That vision was so enduring that some of the ideas would later show up as crucial justifications that led to the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) plan establishment.

There was a moment, during the 2011 budget reading by the Finance Minister that we thought could have been used to arrive at such boldness in budgetary planning: the idea of tackling the perennial water shortages in our towns and villages.

It was a  moment that some of us thought was ripe for a standing ovation. But the Finance Minister's approach kept us in our seats instead.

The highlight of the minister's approach was for the construction of more boreholes. And that killed the applause we had in mind and kept us firm in our seats.

We thought the idea of boreholes for national water planning was petty, lackluster and showed paucity in creative thinking, compared to other options that were available.

The minister could have substituted the borehole prescription for a national rain harvest engineering feat and he could have had us on our feet all day and for years to come.

Though less spectacular than the building of dams like Akosombo, a national project on rain harvesting could have matched the building of dams in its breadth of vision.

And probably surpassed a dam project in its reach to the provinces.

On the scale of the small is beautiful, a rain harvesting scheme could have been a splendor.

Imagine Ghana embarking on a project that harnesses the torrential rains that we get free every year; the same rains that destroy, kill people, maim towns and villages and end up running out to sea in our filthy open drains as waste water!

Imagine also the various small communities from South to North that could be woven into a network of rain harvest literacy projects: the collection, the purification, and the distribution of the cache and the native engineering talents that can arise within the process.

With such an enormous project in place, who then would run out of water in our villages and towns?

Perhaps, Dr. Albert Wright, a Ghanaian and a much honored water and sanitation engineer at the World Bank (This writer has had several conversation with him on the subject), can help as a consultant.

Or a consultation with the engineers at the desert kingdom of Morocco, renowned for their water harvesting engineering, can serve as a starting point.

Grand ideas in national budget planning have the tendency to silent debate and cynicism.  But just listen to this one:

“Madam Speaker, as a result of the severe macroeconomic imbalances that this government inherited from the previous administration, we had to seek the assistance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help us stabilize the economy.” The Finance Minister said  reading the 2011 budget.

The occasion to use for the introduction of a dynamic, forward looking plan, has become one for self eulogizing, while blaming the previous government for all economic ills.

The 2007/8 global recession had nothing to do with the economy the NDC regime inherited from the NPP.  Rather,  a purported mismanagement by the NPP had everything to do with the poor economy the NDC inherited, came the excuses.

But within the same speech, the claim came for having lowered the inflation rate in Ghana to single digits within the short two years’ span of the NDC government in office.

Credible economists will agree that external factors have a lot to do with inflation rate in Ghana, starting with the US Dollar, the Chinese Yuan and the price of oil.

The US Dollar being at its weakest in 2010, with the Yuan tied to the USD and the price of oil plummeting from a high of $150.00 in 2007 to $85.00 USD a barrel in 2010, which meant that a lower inflation rate was already in the bag, regardless of government policy.

But even if the inflation arrest was caused solely by NDC policy initiatives, the 2011 budget platform would not be the appropriate place to boast before the four year full term of the NDC government ended.

 
The minister knew the weak position of the dollar,  the plummeting petroleum price to almost half what it was under the previous government and still couldn't tell us why the distressful exchange rate for our cedi, except to say his government had lowered the inflation rate in the two years they were in office.

In August 2008 the cedi was 1.08 to the dollar. In 2010 the dollar is still ahead at 1.40 cedis exchange rate.

Much of our touted inflationary gains were not at the expense of the dollar but rather gains resulting from the fall in the high price of oil products.

The self-congratulatory moments on the grand stand could have been used to mobilize the national will, like the Five Year Development Plan of the late 50s did.  Or the modest, pedestrian Operation Feed Yourself plan of the Akyeampong era at in its time. 

We need to  build a better Ghana through a unifying idea.

A plan for national rain harvesting project in the 2011 budget could have done it.

Its claims could have included employment and training for the youth, education in public health for the populace, while reclaiming a renewable resource and giving the national economy a needed boost at the same time.

The plan could be offered at much, much lower cost, and offer more benefits than the much sought after STX deal (10 billion US Dollars?) for South Koreans to build houses for Ghanaians.

 

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, publisher, www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, November 22, 2010

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