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SO WHERE ARE THE NPP BRAINS?
By:
Asare Otchere-Darko
eptember 12, 2011
On
the last day of August, the Danquah institute, of which I am a
proud executive member, created an important platform for the
leader of Ghana's main opposition party to lay out his vision
for the Ghanaian people. He did and about five major radio
stations and (Metro TV) carried it live to the hearing of
millions of Ghanaians, both at home and abroad. Newspapers and
news websites have carried the speech in full (including audio)
for those who missed it and others to chew on the details.
However, with the notable exception of Hayford Atta-Krufi and
the controversial Okoampa-Ahoofe, I am yet to come across any
adept swimmer from the pool of intellectual depth, particularly
on the NPP end of the pool, taking the time to write and expand
on the party’s vision for the country, as articulated by its
leader. Instead, they have all allowed the nation to be pissed
and stoned on the synergistic hallucination from the gossips and
indiscretion of our prominent men and women as embarrassingly
exposed in the leaked US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks. The
important things he outlined in the speech have been lost in
this thick cloud of Wikileaks smoke and we need to quickly, as a
nation, clear this unhelpful artificial dust and get to
interrogate issues of importance to the nation.
So I
ask the question, where are the NPP brains? Why are they not
taking Nana’s speech and going to work on them to explain in the
written and spoken word what can be done in Ghana by Ghanaians
under a competent, confident, committed leadership with clarity
in direction on the cart of urgency and purposefulness?
The
Liberty Lecture was the first time, since his election in August
2010, on Ghanaian soil that such a major platform was created
for Nana Akufo-Addo to tell Ghanaians what he intends to do if
elected president in 2012. What was contained in the speech, if
added to his earlier speech in Germany - where the emphasis was
more on science and technology, research and development - gave
clear indications on what can be expected in the 2012 Manifesto
of the New Patriotic Party. I can sum it all up in three words:
EDUCATION, SKILLS AND JOBS.
Nana
Addo said, “What the evidence from history and the experience of
many countries have shown is that it is not natural resources
that build nations. It is people who build nations. It is the
people of Ghana, Ghanaians like you and I, and especially the
youth of today, who are going to build Ghana.”
He
continued to show why he is so big on education, “What the
evidence from history and the experience of many countries have
shown is that it is not natural resources that build nations. It
is people who build nations. It is the people of Ghana,
Ghanaians like you and I, and especially the youth of today, who
are going to build Ghana.”
This
week, we are likely to see the wisdom in President Kufuor’s
decision to extend secondary education to four years. This year
has registered the best results at the West African Secondary
School Examinations, probably for more than 15 years. We are
being confronted with empirical evidence why we should not toil
with the education of our kids. What would be the response of
Government?
At
the Liberty Lecture, Nana Ado said, “the
next NPP administration will NOT, repeat, NOT seek to change the
current JSS-SSS format for at least 4 years.”
I had a discussion with Nana Addo on this, this Sunday, and his
response was straight forward, “I gave my word not to change it,
if faced with empirical evidence that the four-year experiment
is yielding extraordinary results, we would have to rethink for
the sake of our children’s education.”
As
fate will have it, just as I got to this part of this piece I am
writing, at the lounge of Golden Tulip Hotel, Kumasi, three
deputy ministers walked in accompanying the Vice President. In
my discussions with them, I mentioned the Senior High School
results, Mahama Ayariga’s response was this, “the results are
remarkable. In fact there are so many of them getting As that we
are struggling to find places for them at the tertiary level.
The kids have done so well.”
The
NPP should be very active in occupying that space of competent
governance. With Nana Addo’s comprehensive statement on how he
intends to build a society of aspirations and opportunities, he
has given the party both the intellectual and practical tools to
address the concerns and aspirations of the Ghanaian people.
He
said, for example, “During my nationwide Listening Campaign,
the cries of the people, whether it is about cost of education,
bad roads, high cost of living, low retail sales, all come down
to one thing: we need good jobs with good income. But the truth
must be told. Unless we industrialise with the goal of adding
significant value to our primary products, be they heavy or
otherwise, we cannot create the necessary numbers of high-paying
jobs that will enhance the living standards of the mass of our
people. Raw material producing economies do not create
prosperity for the masses.”
This
explains in simple terms his life-long commitment to the
structural transformation of the Ghanaian economy. Those who
have followed his political career can tell that his vision as
laid out in his 1998 presidential bid was consistent with what
he said in 2008 and what he is saying today.
In
the Liberty Lecture he identified certain key triggers for
industrialisation, first focusing on thing that we are already
doing well and expressing a commitment to actively support the
private sector winners in those areas. Typical of these are the
pharmaceutical industry, helping them to be major international
players like in India; medical tourism, by supporting more
Ghanaians (home and abroad) to set up excellent international
health centres – like Cardiothoracic Centre, Pro Vita, Holy
Trinity Spa and Health Farm, and more; commercial farming, by
very actively supporting the creation and expansion of
commercial farms into global champions and modernising
agriculture based on the Millennium Challenge Compact model of
helping small-scale farmers to modernise, grow and expand.
One
of the focus areas I found most exciting and visionary is Nana
Addo’s recognition of palm oil as a lightly tapped mine for
Ghana’s development. Global demand for oil palm plantations
makes it a multi-billion growth industry, which we are
well-placed to capitalise on.
I
was in the Western Region last week and met with some
industrialists, the concern was that palm oil trees are being
uprooted to give ground for rubber plantations because the
latter fetches more money as a raw material. My response was
that it is so because we have not added value to the benefit of
those who were compelled by commercial considerations to give up
on palm oil.
Palm
is a major potential area for us for the next fifty years
because of biodiesel. It is more productive per hectare than
either soya or rapeseed for biodiesel. Chinese, Indian and
European demand for biodiesel is more than world production can
cope.
On
top of that, palm oil is the most significant vegetable oil in
the world, accounting for 30% of world edible oil production.
Nana
Addo’s vision to support large scale palm oil plantations to
create jobs and compete with Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria in
this crop for the future is most laudable. We can create bigger
and more Juaben Oil Mills, Ayiem Oil Mills, and Obooma Oil Mills
in Ghana. If well executed, this can fetch us between $5 and $10
billion annually within a decade. Ghana must become a major
exporter of palm oil. We already have winners to show they way.
What
also got my attention was Nana Addo’s nationalist commitment.
This is also one area that he has been consistent. In 2006 he
coined the phrase ‘indigenous capitalism’. In 2008, he used the
term ‘Ghanaian economic empowerment.’ At the Liberty Lecture he
said he will introduce a comprehensive Local Content Policy,
covering every facet of economic activity. “The Ghanaian
entrepreneur is calling for a policy that looks after his or her
interest on the same basis as the foreign investor who is here
to supplement our own local efforts,” he pointed out.
NPP
is for the private sector and Nana Addo made it clear that the
bulk of private sector activity can be found at the micro level,
so a policy that ignores them will not work for Ghana.
His idea
is to support and promote self-employment with management
training, greater access to markets, access and preferences in
public procurement to give hope to the hordes of street peddlers
in Accra, of kiosk owners, and of lotto and mobile phone card
roadside entrepreneurs.”
His
idea to establish a one stop investment promotion unit called
the Economic Development Authority, which I understand may be
renamed CEDI (Centre for Economic Development and
Investment/Integration – not sure) has been criticised by the
ruling party as ‘too bureaucratic.’ Is it not having various
economic investment organisations rather that elongate the red
tape? It is working in Singapore, China, Malaysia and elsewhere,
so it can work here too. We can do with a lead government agency
for planning and executing strategies to make Ghana a truly
global business destination.
The need to
integrate Ghana’s economic activities for
industrialisation
is key and this is seen in his vision. Nana Addo said,
“We are determined to build a
petrochemical industry here in Ghana, creating linkages with
other businesses that will turn Ghana into a light industry
centre for our region. We intend to convert our petrochemicals
into hundreds of industrial and consumer products produced right
here in Ghana.”
Realising President Kufuor’s dream of building
an integrated
aluminium industry from a natural resource that can fetch us far
more money than oil, gold and cocoa is crucial. Ghana’s bauxite
deposits carry a potential value of $350 billion. The steel
industry should also come on stream.
In conclusion,
this is what I got from Nana Addo’s plans for Ghana.
THE NPP WILL GET GHANA BACK TO WORK. NANA ADDO
WILL PUT GHANA BACK TO WORK. HIS FOCUS IS ON JOBS. EDUCATION
MEANS JOBS. SKILLS MEANS JOBS. ACCESS TO CREDIT MEANS JOBS.
INDUSTRIALISATION MEANS JOBS. MORDENISING AGRIC MEANS JOBS.
STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY MEANS MORE INVESTMENTS FOR MORE JOBS.
I
pray that the brains in the NPP will focus the nation’s brains
and attention on these matters of serious national interest. We
are not fated to be poor. But the fight against poverty must
begin in earnest with the fight to get matters of real national
interest to occupy the space of national discourse as opposed to
matters that may interest the sensations of the public. Let the
nation feel the expressions of NPP brains for our collective
gain.
The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute.
gabby@danquahinstitute.org
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