Transforming the Neo-Liberal Guggisberg Economy

Ghana has been to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) seventeen (17 ) times all in a bid of transforming this economy from an export of raw material to a robust economy where finish products are exported instead of the import of same. Our economy suffers from structural transformation hinged on the Guggisberg model where we serve as producers of raw material to the industrial world. Apart from the radical attempt by Ghana's foremost President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in transforming this economy, subsequent leaders that came after him has done little or nothing at all in terms of transforming this economy from agrarian based to Industry led. Ghana's agricultural and service sector's contribution to GDP has over the years continued to shrunk significantly and has overtaken by the service sector followed by the industrial sector, agriculture and the extractive sector.

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Our leaders are good at given promises and "punchline" speeches aimed at transforming this limping economy yet the story is still the same half-a-century after taken charge of our own affairs. But the question is, how would our leaders transform this economy when their economy principles are still rooted in neo-liberal economic principles that has been tried for over fifty(50) years after independence?. With weak industrial base, how does our the economy of Ghana become competitive against other economies? How do we protect or insulate our economy form global tectonic shifts and waves? Our economy has never been so resilient to withstand global crisis. All this is because, the political elites and the so-called economists from Harvard and Yale has built our economy on neo-liberal principles.

Countries like Japan,China, Germany and others, have higher Per Capita Income due to their strong manufacturing base. Thus to transform our economy, policy makers and our economists need to move beyond the mere rhetorics to actual implementation of what they verbally pronounce. This can be done by;

Transforming agriculture and making it attractive to more people to invest in the sector. This is not just coming-up with populists policies like Planting for Food and Job(PFJ) or Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ). Agriculture should move from rain fed and seasonal production of food to all year-round production based on a mechanize irrigation and technology systems. This means that the country would become self-sufficient when it comes to food production. This policies are long term projects that must be spearheaded by technocrats and not necessarily politicians who usually hijack such projects.Another means of transforming this Guggisberg economy is to create industries that process the output of the agriculture sector. this means that their raw material would be coming form the farm thus creating more jobs within the value chain. This would create both forward and backward linkages within the agriculture sector and its related industries.

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Another means of moving from this neo-liberal system is to stop attracting of Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs) and granting tax incentives to Transnational Mining Companies. The extractive sector should also be linked to the manufacturing sector where all inputs on the upstream and downstream would be acquired from local companies or suppliers. The petrochemical industry for instance can be linked to the salt industry thus, creating value for the salt mine and the Ada enclave and Daboya. Research has shown that the Ada enclave alone can supply Ghana and Nigeria all the salts in needs for the petrochemical industry yet million of dollars are spent on the importation of salt from Brazil yearly. This means that the country has not been able to properly link.

All these are practical steps that could be done to make sure that the economy is insulated against global shocks. This of course, would not happen without radical transformation of our educational system which has become a caricature of itself. We radically need to transform our educational sector to train competent labour for the industry. We need to depart from book knowledge and the social science to embrace ICT and proper STEM based curricula tailored to move our economy from exportation of raw material to the exportation of Finish goods.

Thanks for Reading!!!!