The jury is still out on the value impact of electoral democracies on everyday bread and butter struggles. The past two years, especially in ECOWAS, has seen negative waves as democratic political leadership action seemed unable to provide human security under rule of law, leading to some military takeovers.
Fortunately for Ghana, over thirty years of the 4th Republican Constitutional structure and practice, seems to have settled democratic choice under rule of law as the most viable path for economic management.
So, we are at an extraordinary juncture, where, in spite of the fundamentally sound framework governments of the NPP have pursued in the 4th Republic, we have had to return to IMF direction of public finances. Yes, we have been there before. Seventeen or eighteen times, depending on who is counting. The extraordinary difference is the depth of the challenge this time, involving a major and extremely painful debt over haul impacting otherwise safe government investments and threatening the very foundations of our modern financial system.
The politics of the NDC assumes it has already won the 2024 election on the back of the current economic situation and the eight year electoral cycle. Given these two core factors, the NDC is hardly bothering to craft and offer any new solutions. Indeed, their solution has always been their tight relationship to the IMF/WB duo, dating back to 1984, when they exchanged half-baked Marxist orthodoxy for extremist market liberalism that did not factor in indigenous entrepreneurial growth and embedded external consultancy as a way of managing public policy.
The NDC has not changed. Indeed, their last leadership election and the firm intent to repeat JDM confirms their lack of progress. Moreover, the IMF is already here, so there are no surprises to be expected from JDM. But, and a big but, they may benefit from default mode where NPP adherents hopelessly succumb to the eight year malaise, compounded by uncertainty about their way forward out of the current economic malaise.
A turnaround depends on an extraordinary personality. A personality whose attributes rise above NPP/NDC in favour of Ghana. An extraordinary personality with the capacity, ability and courage to break the mould. The mould of near permanent public sector structural adjustment and unfettered open markets that exclude indigenous capital and therefore any chance of real growth.
Economist, Lawyer, Organisational Change Management Expert, Trade and Industry facilitator, Economic Diplomat and Politician Alan John Kwadwo ‘Aduruwoso’ Kyerematen is that personality. It would appear his whole life experience has been readying him for this extraordinary time. His training under political parentage, his professional pursuits giving him practical and real experience of building indigenous captains of industry, and his patient participation in 4th Republican leadership at the higher levels of the NPP, have positioned him on the juncture of history to tackle Ghana’s most intractable problem, which is, transitioning indigenous capital to sustain expansionary job creation, incomes and provision of adequate and affordable public social capital.
The evidence of his unparalleled track record is right before us. Imagine where our primary economy would be if we had invested the millions in temporary jobs to NYEP and its later surrogates into the PSIs? Per Alan’s analysis, where Cocoa, our icon for export led growth, has hardly given us up to $2billion per annum, Oil Palm, Cassava, Salt and Garments-PSIs-could together be giving us in excess of $60billion per annum, if only leadership policy had backed that route heavily enough twenty two years ago.
Fast track to today. The 10 point Strategic Diversification Plan he has championed at MoTI, has produced new and very viable growth poles. But, to succeed, there must be political will to commit appropriate resources. 1D1F, the Automotive Industry, the BRCs and TSCs, the ENABLE Youth Factories and the Farmer Owned Processing Factories are parts of a whole that can easily be said to be supporting about half a million direct and indirect jobs.
Compare that to the GHC70million a month and the about 3% of CST poured into NABCO and other Government sponsored temporary job efforts and you realise the value we are missing through political favouritism.
Alan is the man of the moment. I invite our middle classes and civil society to play their role as defenders of liberal democracy by interrogating the Great Transformational Plan (GTP) and thereafter to engage the Ghanaian political public to support the best man for the job of the moment. A presidency that can be trusted and depended on to provide appropriate and adequate solutions. To build an ‘Enabling State’ that ‘Efficiently’ and ‘Effectively Functions’ to deliver our needs. Jobs and Cash. Ghana 2024 will buy Alan Kyerematen.
The promise of recovery is self-evident in him.
BY YAW BUABEN ASAMOA