Open Letter to the President: Towards the National Economic Dialogue

Mr. President, before you commence this economic dialogue, we want to remind you that the outcomes are not binding on you and at the end of the day what will prevail and transpire in governance will be based on your convictions so assess what you are really about and pursue it with all your might. For us in the Nkrumahist Circle, we wish you take a serious look at Kwame Nkrumah’s Seven Year Development plan. What may take our entire life to learn may be summarized in books from others' experiences. So, learn from those who succeeded and not those who failed.

The second most important activity you need to commit to before this economic dialogue is to reflect on the past economic policies of the previous governments including yours, and identify the similar patterns that failed or worked before you try something new. You do not have the luxury of time to redo a policy that keeps failing. If you care to note our observation from a distance; four fundamental economic policies drive Ghana’s economy into the abyss you expressed weeks ago. Foremost is divestiture; to privatize state assets when faced with economic crisis, second is cedi devaluation, third is foreign firms' control of Ghana’s wealth and productive sector in the name of foreign investments, and the fourth is relatively open market resulting in high import of manufactured goods. Be reminded that privatization, cedi devaluation and open market were recommendations of the IMF in their Structural Adjustment Program. In other words, Ghana’s economy has been engineered by a series of IMF and World Bank programs and interventions since the days of the Busia administration. The facade is; that you and others only pursue microeconomic policies such as sector taxation or some welfare policies and constructions here or there but the major direction of the economy is beyond your scope. This situation is due to high international interest in Ghana’s economy.

The economic dialogue you trumpet will more likely end up bringing onboard pro-capitalist pro-IMF/ neocolonialist and private agencies who are looking out for their interest within the sector they operate. Such a body of anti-nationalists and anti-socialists never admit that the capitalist road has failed for the past three decades. We pretend but know well that increasing foreign investment without nationalist protectionist policies amounts to a colonial economy. What is the use of millions of foreign investments when they end up airlifting billions worth of gold, shipping out billions worth of oil, or repatriating huge net profits to their home country? On such a road, the state loses control of the major sectors of the economy and is subjected to beg for loans with cutthroat conditions or to unleash horrible taxes on the population as a means to raise revenue to stay relevant.

In simple terms, from our perspective, Ghana’s economic problem for the past three decades or more is; that we produce too little and yet consume more from economies that need our raw materials for their industries and need our market for their profit and yet their financiers are our economic tutors (IMF and USAID). Their tutelage has kept us where they want us. How can we be producers if we give our minerals and raw materials to foreigners who pump them into their industries to make goods for us to buy? Let's not pretend further that they are willing to give us support to build industries and stop buying from them. Nigeria banned rice import to secure indigenous production but we know your Komenda sugar factory is in the bush. It is through indigenous control of the national resources and modern input that we can produce enough resources for ourselves. It is through deliberate state-led industrial policies that we can convert these resources into manufactured goods in the shortest possible time. This is the condition that will bring jobs, cut the excessive imports, value the cedi, and reduce the foreign debt. Without the Nkrumahist approach; state-led industrialization and protectionism our economy will fundamentally remain a dependent economy (in Abyss).

Clearly, you simply have two options: to take the radical socialist approach or run back to IMF and their capitalist neocolonialist affiliates who will give you the old good-for-nothing advice: take a loan to buy from us, take this loan to pay that loan, sell state enterprise, freeze employment, tax the people, inject a few welfare policies to cool down the people and then you will get away with doing nothing new like those that let Ghanaians down. All the best Mr. President.

The Nkrumahist Circle