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24.02.2022 Feature Article

FIXTHECOUNTRY Movement: What To Fix? The Institutional Factor Part 1

FIXTHECOUNTRY Movement: What To Fix? The Institutional Factor Part 1
24.02.2022 LISTEN

Well-functioning governance institutions that are effective, accountable, and open are necessary to realize democratic ethos and norms. Governance institutions are the fulcrum around which the economic, social, and political levers of democratic society revolve. Effective institutions create an environment where citizens can aspire to live together peacefully and productively. Institutional setups that lend credence to the rule of law, efficient government structures, continuous fight against corruption, and overall national stability is the recipe for economic growth, development, social equity, and peaceful co-existence among people.

Often Ghanaian public intellectuals and journalists look at the socio-economic and political problems of the country from the perspective of the character traits of the politicians and bureaucrats. Yes, we know these people are corrupt, but that is not the genesis of the problems that confront us. We face problems that stem from the extractive and exploitative political, social, and institutional systems set up to oppress and exploit the colonies. These systems are maintained and sustained through what Paulo Freire termed the "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by our own people who succeeded the colonial masters. According to Freire, the socially dispossessed internalize the oppressors' negative images created and propagated. Our African leaders see liberation as a change from the oppressed status to the oppressor's status. To them, liberation means dressing, eating, speaking, and living like their former oppressors, resulting in entitlement mindsets among our leaders.

We need to reflect on the nature of our oppression and then take concrete action to change it. People who intend to lead this cause must engage in dialogic discourse with the oppressed people rather than becoming like oppressors. Unfortunately, since the oppressed see liberation in terms of the status of the oppressors, the oppressed who lead this charge become and behave like their former oppressors and often are more brutal than the former oppressors. So it is the system that provides the avenue for own leaders to exploit and impoverish the people that need to change. The 1992 constitution crafted for the benefits of Mr. Rawlings, a revolutionist, is the worst exploitative institutional and political system since independence. Our problem is not Mr. Mahama or Mr. Akuffo Addo, but rather the administrative, political, economic, and institutional system that allows them to exploit us. It is an institutional problem!

Countries that have done well after independence have done so because of the efficient and effective institutions they set setup. Unlike Ghana, Singapore's economic growth and development are linked to its highly developed technocratic government, leading to competitive, meritocratic, and results-based economic policies. The technocratic foundations of transparency and good governance released resources from the hands of selfish and amoral bureaucrats and politicians into the public purse to provide clean air, safe streets, excellent schools, affordable health care, high ownership, and high per capita income.

Governance institutions have a significant impact on the economic performance of countries. For example, the superior, open, efficient, and effective institutional setups in South Korea and West Germany compared to the closed and autocratic institutions in North Korea and East Germany demonstrate the critical roles compelling and evolving institutions offer to citizens. Effective and efficient governance institutions in the form of contracts and contract enforcement, standard commercial codes, increased availability of information tend to reduce the costs of economic transactions, risk, and uncertainty. Also, it allows firms to retain the added value it creates for their benefit. Good institutions that protect property rights and the rule of law spur investment and increase income. Strong governance institutions affect the scope for oppression and expropriation of resources by the political and bureaucratic elites.

Unequal institutions which allow the most dominant and influential group in the society unfair advantage in economic exchange limits development, as we are experiencing in Ghana. Institutions also determine the extent to which the environment is conducive to increased cooperation among economic actors and the creation of social capital. Great institutions ensure greater self-expression, allow the free flow of information, and encourage the formation of associations and clubs that increase trust among citizens. Competent public sector institutions engender entrepreneurship, innovation, and human capital management.

This article aims to demonstrate that our country's major problem is not lack of resources but rather lack of workable, functional, and responsible governance institutions. President Akuffo Addo's statement that "The nation is sitting on a huge amount of money" is true. The problem is that he has not explained why we are still going through the current economic crisis under his administration while we sit on a massive amount of money? How can one dispute the truth of his statement when the country exports gold, diamond, aluminum, manganese ore, diamonds, oil, cocoa beans, timber products, tuna, and horticulture?

We also need to factor into the revenue equation the non-traditional exports like yams, gari, smoked fish, and other products patronized by Ghanaians and Nigerians abroad. We should also not forget about the vast remittances from Ghanaian expatriates abroad into the Ghanaian economy yearly. The yearly remittances surpass our FDA loans from foreign governments and financial institutions. The official remittances from Ghana in 2015 were about $5 billion. Other sources of revenues include the substantial import taxes placed on imports from abroad. So the man is correct in saying that we sit on a massive amount of money, but the question is: where is the money? The problem is that the barrel is leaking profusely because of the weak institutional setups.

So, the country's problem is not lack of natural or financial resources, but rather lack of functional governance institutions and corrupt, ineffective, and inefficient administrative setup. Some political scientists and public administration experts trace sub-Saharan African countries' dysfunctional administrative systems to their colonial legacies: there is a close relationship between the colonial administrative setups and the present institutional setups.

The experts argue that the Europeans adopted different administrative policies in different colonies based on their mortality rates in those countries. They set up "extractive institutions" in places they could not settle, and the native who succeeded the colonial masters continued to pursue these unhealthy policies after independence. The idea of the speaker of parliament taking sick leave outside the country and the payments of ex gratia awards to parliamentarians are part of the vestiges of the colonial "Extractive policies" put in place to exploit the colonies.

We speak proudly about Ghanaian democracy, but one has to ask: democracy for which group of Ghanaians?

We have competitive elections and alternation in power, yet for many citizens, democracy is a shallow and invisible phenomenon to them. For many Ghanaians, political participation is just about lining up in the scorching sun every four years to vote. To the ordinary Ghanaian, democracy does not mean anything where politics is elite-dominated, corrupt, and unresponsive to the majority of the citizens. Many people see distressed governance: domineering local oligarchies, incompetent and indifferent bureaucracies, corrupt and inaccessible judiciaries, and venal, ruling elites contemptuous of the rule of law and accountable to only themselves. There are elections, but they are contests between two corrupt, clientelistic parties that serve popular interests only in name.

For real democracy to prevail and propel our country to economic prosperity, we need to reduce the abuse of power and open economic and political access to the majority of the people; we need democratic institutions and impersonal and impartial rules. All this can happen if we establish trusts and cooperation across ethnic and religious divides to challenge the elites who have used ethnicity as opium to drug the poor while they financially and economically rape them. We need effective institutions of governance to constrain our political leaders' nearly unlimited discretion, open their public sector decisions and transactions to public scrutiny, and hold them accountable before the law, the constitution, and public interests. In the next section, this article will deal with measures that need to be put in place and enforced to provide effective administrative and institutional systems that are workable.

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