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On Dr. Thomas Mensah’s Vision Of Developing High Speed Train In Ghana: How Do We Make It A Reality And ‘Truly Beneficial’?

By Alexander K. Eduful
Opinion Dr. Thomas Mensah
AUG 1, 2018 LISTEN
Dr. Thomas Mensah

In this short article, I attempt to explore how Dr. Thomas Mensah’s dream of industrializing Ghana through high speed rail may become a reality. My major concern is with the issue of finding investors to buy into the project and securing the needed funding for the project. I know time is key in Dr. Mensah’s calculations for several reasons, including an increasingly growing competitive West Africa. Yet, the need to tinge the proposed development with sustainable development ideal may not be out of place.

As such, whilst Dr. Mensah has indicated he is working with the (international) private sector to make the project a reality, I suggest the need to explore Ghanaian participation from the local front as well as those in the diaspora. I also suggest a need for the state to consider some para-state organizations such as SSNIT, GNPC, COCOBOD, VRA or even the revamped Ghana Civil Aviation, etc. to take a stake in the project. Finally, I am suggesting that, given the time space Dr. Mensah seeks to deliver his plans, it will be a good idea to consider a grant from Ghana’s development partners, both multilateral and bilateral.

Dr. Thomas Mensah, one of Ghana’s illustrious sons, is a blessing not only to Ghana but entire humanity. It might even be safe to suggest that the developed world has benefitted from Dr. Mensah far more than Ghana has. After all, the application of his inventions in the field of nanotechnology and technology at large (e.g. Google, Facebook, Instagram, AI, etc.) have become almost the lifeblood of the advanced world. Having been born in Kumasi in 1950, Dr. Mensah spent the first 24 years of his life in Ghana after obtaining his first degree from the Nkrumah University in Kumasi in 1974. Having left Ghana in the same year, Dr. Mensah received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from France’s University of Science and Technology in Montpellier in 1978. According to Dr. Mensah, whilst in France, he took part in a certificate program in Modelling and Simulation in Chemical Processes at America’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He then left to undertake research work and ultimately settled in the US. Of course, as a brilliant young scientist, settling in the world’s most technologically advanced nation at the time, the sky was the limit. His inventions in fiber optics and nanotechnology revolutionized the information age, compressing, a lot more, time and space. By 2000, Dr. Mensah has had seven US patents to his credit. So for the last 43 years, the US or more appropriately, the (advanced) world has benefited from this gem of a Ghanaian!

After 43 years of sojourning in the west, Dr. Mensa is back to his motherland, not to settle, but passionate to “do something before…” the Almighty’s bell tolls! In fact, if I had the capacity, I will advise that, if it were possible, the Almighty will shelve tolling the bell for Dr. Mensah to linger on earth for the next century. That way, his motherland can also reap some benefits from his fine mind. This is because, it seem to me, in the motherland, sometimes things do not move as fast as one would wish. It seems we literally TAKE TIME (a Ghanaian refrain) to analyze and process certain things! But, the good book asks ‘who hath directed… or being [the Almighty’s] counsellor hath taught Him?’ So, I am praying and pleading both to the Almighty and to [hu]men that at least men may move with reasonable dispatch so that Dr. Mensah can leave a legacy, especially for Ghana.

The good news is that he has it all laid out. He has promised and planned a number of things that will lead to Ghana’s industrialization. To mention a few of them, these include: i) high speed train, ii) Silicon Valley of Ghana, iii) Aircraft maintenance facility. Dr. Mensah’s visions are in tandem with Ghana’s present political aspirations and he intends to achieve these three goals in the next five years, perhaps by 2022. In this article, my biggest interest lie with the high speed train.

The problem is that the state (Ghana) lacks the financial capacity to take the lead role in the realization of this noble vision. And, indeed, the current political structures has a posture of creating the necessary environment for the private sector to take advantage, to the extent that perhaps even if the state had the financial wherewithal, it will still be a case of ‘the state has no business in business’. Consequently, it has become imperative that Dr. Mensah tries to assemble a coalition to lead in this industrialization development program. Of course, in a neoliberal world, this has a lot of currency.

But, on the sub-Saharan African terrain, global capitalists are very much wary when it comes to large-scale investments, and particularly so if it involves a seemingly untested investment within the sub-Saharan context. This on account that the terrain retains uncertainties that might well heighten investment challenges and risks. Well, thankfully, Kenya and Ethiopia have led the way particularly in the area of the high speed train. I am glad that from Dr. Mensah’s accounts, gleaned from the Ghanaian media, he has the support of international investors and the Ghanaian government.

Undoubtedly, in spite of systemic challenges, investing in Ghana has prospects, especially, for international investors. This has been highlighted by several investment watch groups including McKinsey, Ernst and Young and the Washington-based International Business Publications (IBP). So, it is not all gloomy for international capitalists to consider investing big in Ghana and other sub-Saharan African countries. Besides, improvements in information communications, media, political economy and legal/institutional frameworks are such that fairly reliable data could be obtained by investors to make informed decisions.

And, of course, Ghana is increasingly ramping up oil production, such that by 2022, when Dr. Mensah hopes to have achieved his first goal, i.e. fast speed train, oil production may well be in the region of 300,000 barrels per day. Indeed, the recent entrance of the ‘class prefect’ of the ‘oil majors’, ExxonMobil, into Ghana’s hydrocarbon space gives a decidedly upbeat prospects to the growing oil industry. That certainly holds economic prospects for Ghana, such that within a growing oil economy, investors (in high speed rails, aircraft maintenance, etc.) are likely to get their money back. Saying this, I am not sweeping under the carpet the problems that have been associated with oil economies in other countries, particularly those of sub-Saharan Africa.

Yet, Botswana’s relatively good diamond resource management presents one example of a sub-Saharan African country side-stepping the so-called resource curse. Additionally, with the current growing institutional structures including attempts at fighting official and systemic corruption as demonstrated through the setting up of the independent office of special prosecution (OSP) manned by one of Ghana’s fiercest anti-corruption crusaders, investors can only be assured of diminished risks.

Having said that, it seems to me that the state should also consider seriously encouraging Ghana’s local private sector to take a stake in these industrialization projects as espoused by Dr. Mensah. This is on account that it would, to some degree, lead to growing local wealth a situation that makes for good sustainability; for present and future generations (of Ghanaians).

But, I recognize that local capacity may be low in raising such investments. Listening to Dr. Mensah’s media briefings, I got the sense that the high speed train would cost anywhere between $3 and $6billion depending on which phase we are looking at. He is on record to have suggested the government leverages on its bauxite resources through a special arrangement with China where in exchange for bauxite, China would give Ghana the high speed rail. Though this idea may have currency, I am not certain in the light of the extreme fiscal and other economic challenges it may be the way to go. If anything, a middle ground position, in which government or the state trades off a part of this, say something less than half a billion dollars, may perhaps be worthwhile.

Certainly other avenues that explore funding options, including a grant, with China would certainly be welcome, especially in the light of China’s increasing importance in Africa and, for that matter, global economic affairs. Dr. Mensah has suggested that the first phase is estimated at about $3 billion. Is it not possible for Ghana to raise $1 billion to take some 20 to 30% in this investment? And how can Ghana raise such an amount to have up to 30% stake? I am thinking that local and para-state organizations as well as Ghanaians in the diaspora who are running multi-million dollar businesses should be targeted.

For instance, why can’t we encourage para-state organizations such as the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), COCOBOD, the Volta River Authority (VRA), among others, to begin looking at taking a stake or share in the high speed rail? In listing these organizations, I am not oblivious of our immediate history relating to say GNPC’s investment in areas that had previously been criticized as not part of their core mandate. Of course, back then in the early to mid-2000s, Ghana had not struck oil and perhaps one would argue that the need to focus on their core mandate may have been a good idea. This is especially so on the basis that immediately after the refocusing, commercial oil was discovered.

Yet that is far from me adducing a deterministic link/causation between refocusing and discovery of oil. But, ten to fifteen years on, diversification of portfolio may not be out of place. Around the world, strategic re-alignment and diversification of state-owned (or pseudo-state owned) enterprises that serve the national interests have been pursued, as necessary. For instance, in South Korea, Hyundai, once a construction company, became an automobile company and later the Korean state intervened in its operations to make it the sole producer of marine engines in Korea. Different times may demand different actions.

Finally, I think Ghana needs to make a plea to its development partners to help make this a reality. By that I mean, and let me on that score use this medium to plead, that our development partners consider offering a grant to support the construction of Dr. Mensah’s high speed train in Ghana. On the strength of that plea, I am not oblivious of the Ghana President’s espousal of a ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mantra. With good intensions, obviously, the President, amongst others, indicates that a ‘Ghana (and for that matter, Africa) Beyond Aid’ is healthy and helpful for both Ghana and the world. This is on the basis that once Ghana industrializes through e.g. high speed rail, information technology and aircraft maintenance facility, among others, these would have a cascading effect on the entire economy that both Ghana and the development partners stand to benefit.

Firstly, numbers of young people who migrate to the advanced nations in Europe and North America and lately to China will drop. This obviously will be beneficial to the advanced economies as the burden on the recipient nation’s social amenities/systems will be diminished. Recently, the world has had to grapple with the gory sight of young West Africans who braze through unimaginable risks to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean to reach Europe. A developed Ghana or West Africa will save the world, to some degree, the trauma of such gory spectacles. Secondly, as Dr. Mensah has so eloquently espoused, a high speed train that connects the country will serve to facilitate the government’s one district one factory (1D1F) policy. Currently, one of the challenges to setting up these factories has to do with transportation.

The fact that transport infrastructure in the nation is inadequate is a major disincentive to investments in other parts of the country where several natural resources abound. Once a high speed train is built that connects remote and outlying resource-rich towns, transportation cost and time to move production goods to the ports will be significantly diminished. The rail will also serve to decongest Ghana’s biggest cities which will inure positively to investments even in the big cities.

On that score, international investors would be more confident in joining in the 1D1F initiatives including moving into the various regions of Ghana to set up district factories. As data from the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) shows, a good proportion of international investors in Ghana are of western origin. The development of a high speed train which would enhance the investment landscape across the country will undoubtedly benefit many western investors. Thirdly, historically, there has been a long standing relationship between Ghana, Africa, and the West. In the modern era, Ghana is the place in sub-Saharan Africa where European explorers first made contact which led to a long lasting relationship between Europe and Africa that decidedly changed the course of world development and its history, particularly the western world. A support from “old pals/associates” at this critical juncture would therefore not be out of place.

Moving away from the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ rationalizations, Dr. Mensah’s contributions through his invention in the field of nanotechnology and fiber optics has undoubtedly led to massive economic growth of the advanced world, particularly the US. And, indeed, the US has more than adequate capacity to help Ghana develop a high speed train. Of course, the US has been a great supporter of Ghana since independence. A case in point being the first Millennium Challenge compact that provided Ghana the N1 highway (nicknamed the George W. Bush Highway), among others. Helping Dr. Mensah develop a high speed train for the country of his birth will be a great honor to him and, as a legacy, it will go down into history as his greatest achievement for his motherland.

On account of these reasons, and perhaps more, a grant of say half a billion dollars to build Ghana’s high speed rail from Ghana’s development partners may therefore not be out of place. Indeed, during President Kufuor’s administration in the mid-2000, the development partners wrote off Ghana’s external debt worth several billions of dollars under the IMF/World Bank HIPC initiatives. Beyond that, there are several targeted grants that Ghana has received over the period of nationhood, for which the people are undoubtedly grateful. Yet, like Oliver Twist, as Charles Dickens wrote, ‘[we] ask for more’! As such, I use this medium to plead that the World Bank, the IMF, US, UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, China, among others consider a grant, perhaps in the region of half a billion dollars, to support Dr. Mensah’s proposed high speed rail development in Ghana.

In concluding, the benefits that the development of a high speed train in Ghana will yield seems obvious; not only to Ghana but the entire international community as well. Yet, for Ghana a need for a targeted intervention that ensures some local participation will serve to further ground indigenous interests. Thus, whilst Dr. Mensah and his team are working at it, it is important for both the state and Dr. Mensah to explore the possibility of ensuring that there is a Ghanaian participation in the arrangement so that some of the wealth generated therefrom will stay within Ghana. I believe this will be in line with sustainable development ideals. However, ensuring Ghanaians benefit from the wealth to be created and the timely realization of this dream, i.e. within the space of three years, in a competitive world means that we will need ‘the guidance of a trinity’ (to borrow Professor V. B. Singh’s phrase): private sector funds, local participation (including through individuals and para-state organizations) and the development partners. Time is of the essence!

Disclaimer:
The thoughts expressed in this article are purely the opinion of the author. The author has not personally met or interviewed Dr. Mensa and as such the article does not reflect in any way Dr. Thomas Mensah’s position. There is also no association whatsoever between the author and Dr. Mensah.

About the Author
The writer is at the Oxford University Center for the Environment. His interests are in architecture, urban development, sustainable development, and energy. He holds a master degree in urbanism landscape ecology from the Harvard University. He also holds a Master of Science degree in environmental resources management and architecture degrees from the Nkrumah University in Kumasi, Ghana. He studied general science and mathematical science at Kumasi High School and Cape Coast’s Mfantsipim School, respectively.

Acknowledgment
The author expresses his appreciation to Dr. Festus Asaaga for his useful comments on the essay.

By: Alexander K. Eduful
Oxford University Center for the Environment
Oxford, UK.

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