By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
Accra, Ghana//-Ghana’s population is estimated at 30 million, which means the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to throw off the yoke of imperialism on 6th March 1957, has skilled and unskilled labour in abundance.
Ghana’s population and political stability also makes it a fertile ground for sub-regional regional, continental and global trade.
Recognizing its pioneering contribution to the struggle for the liberation of the African continent and black race world, African Union (AU) has decided to host the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area ( AfCFTA) in Ghana.
Additionally, Ghana is rich in mineral and oil and gas resources. It is Africa’s largest producer of gold since 2019, and the world’s 7th leading producer.
Agriculturally, it is the world’s second producer of cocoa after Ivory Coast. More than 60 percent of its land is agrarian.
Also, its human resource is topnotch in Africa. For instance, Ghana produced the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from January 1997 to December 2006. Kofi Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.
These endowments should have made Ghana one of the key destinations for global trade. And with its vast wealth in mineral, oil and gas and natural resources as well as its vast agricultural potential, Ghana should have by now become Africa’s economic superpower.
However, Ghana which is marking its 64 years of independence today is like a rickety vehicle struggling to climb a hilly road. Apart from holding eight successful democratic elections and peaceful transfers of power from one political to another, the country is yet to achieve its potential.
THE CHALLENGES
Youth unemployment
The country’s population is becoming a source of its weakness and not its strength like its big brother-Nigeria.
Ghana’s 2015 Labour Force Report, the overall unemployment rate in Ghana is an estimated 11.9 percent (Ghana Statistical Service 2016).
Persons with a secondary school education have the highest rate of unemployment (24.4 percent), while those with a postsecondary education or more have recorded the lowest rate (13 percent).
With respect to youth, it is estimated that 59.6 percent are employed, 12.1 percent are unemployed, and the rest are not in the labor force (Ghana Statistical Service 2016).
More males (62.8 percent) than females (57.2 percent) are employed, and the majority (90 percent) of employed youth are engaged by the private sector.
The proportion of unemployed youth is higher in urban (13.6 percent) than in rural (10.4 percent) areas.
The civil and public services together employ 8.4 percent of youth. The labour force participation rate of youth is 71.7 percent, and it is higher among males (75.1 percent) than females (69.2 percent) and higher in rural areas than in urban areas.
In terms of the number of hours worked per week, only 18.5 percent of employed youth work between 30 and 39 hours per week, whereas 45.5 percent work less than 30 hours per week.
The rest (17.5 percent) works more than 49 hours per week. More than one-fifth of employed youth (22.4 percent) work 20–29 hours per week.
Macroeconomic challenges
As noted, Ghana has faced macroeconomic challenges, particularly related to its dependence on natural resources for economic growth, which also have contributed to stagnation of its manufacturing sector.
Growth in manufacturing declined for a range of reasons, including rising interest rates, higher production and distribution costs, aging or obsolete equipment, inefficient infrastructure services, and low productivity.
So far, neither the oil nor the manufacturing sector has produced as many jobs as expected. Under this growth model, most of the new jobs created have been in low-earning, low-productivity trade services, with 25 percent of the population working in this sector (Honorati and Johansson de Silva 2016).
Ghana recorded its worst economic performance for the first time in nearly four decades as the major exporter of raw mineral commodities experienced a recession for two consecutive quarters of 2020.
Data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) showed that real GDP growth provisionally contracted by 1.1 percent in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the 3.2 percent contraction recorded in the second quarter.
In particular, non-oil GDP recorded a more measured contraction of 0.4 percent in the third quarter of 2020, compared to a contraction of 3.4 percent in the second quarter.
The West African country’s economy has suffered the contraction due to the unfavorable impact of the coronavirus pandemic and its related effects on growth, according to the GSS.
The GSS named sectors such as the hospitality and mining and quarrying suffered a growth contraction of 62.1 percent and 16.9 percent respectively.
The last time the country recorded a recession was in 1983 when it was engulfed in political instability, famine and economic unrests.
Siphoning of resource wealth
Ghana which is currently categorized as a high-potential, lower-middle-income country, allows big corporations from industrialised and wealthy countries in Europe, U.S, Asia and others to siphon its petroleum, mineral and other natural resources away through dubious deals.
Ghana which is endowed with mineral resources such as gold, diamonds and manganese, oil and gas has benefited significantly less from the resources.
Although they boosted the country’s economic growth over the years, citizens in these resource-rich communities are not benefiting enough from the resources.
Some of their elite brothers and sisters who are connected to power are swimming in the wealth of the resources while their counterparts in the resource communities are struggling to cope with the negative impacts of the resource extractions.
These debates are usually characterised by comparisons between Johannesburg of South Africa and that of Obuasi in Ghana.
They normally argue that South Africa which was dethroned by Ghana in 2019 as the largest producer of gold in Africa used its gold resource to develop Johannesburg into a world class city.
Paradoxically, while Ghana which was onetime known as Gold Coast because of the huge endowment of gold did not invest in its gold city-Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.
It is not only Obuasi which suffered this non-investment. Gold mining cities including Tarkwa, Prestea, Bogoso and Akwatia all in the Western, Western North and Eastern Region also faced the same challenge.
Also, the environment, wildlife, aquatic lives and water bodies of these cities and other mining communities in the country have been affected by the activities of giant and small mining companies.
Ghana was a giant nation
At independence, all eyes were on the first black country on earth to gain freedom from the British. For good reasons; Dr Kwame Nkrumah who led the country into independence had become the toss of the world.
He embarked on numerous road building projects, mass education of adults and children, and health services, as well as the construction of the Akosombo Dam which is still the leading generator of electricity to the Ghanaian people.
During his time, Ghana set up a number of factories that were producing and assembling vehicles, TV sets, glasses, production of jute bags for coca, among others. You can say that the country at time was self-depended.
According to Nkrumah, his government, which represented the first black African nation to win Independence, had an important role to play in the struggle against capitalist interests on the continent.[184]
As he put it, “the independence of Ghana would be meaningless unless it was tied to the total liberation of Africa.” It was important, then, he said, for Ghanaian’s to “seek first the political kingdom.” Economic benefits associated with independence were to be enjoyed later, proponents of Nkrumah’s position argued. But Nkrumah needed strategies to pursue his goals.[181]
On the continental level, Nkrumah sought to unite Africa so that it could defend its international economic interests and stand up against the political pressures from East and West that were a result of the Cold War.[182] His dream for Africa was a continuation of the pan-Africanist dream as expressed at the Manchester conference.[185]
The initial strategy was to encourage revolutionary political movements in Africa. The CIA believed that Nkrumah’s government provided money and training for pro-socialist guerrillas in Ghana, aided after 1964 by the Chinese Communist government.
Several hundred trainees passed through this program, administered by Nkrumah’s Bureau of African Affairs, and were sent on to countries such as Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique, Niger and Congo.[186]
Politically, Nkrumah believed that a Ghana, Guinea, and Mali union would serve as the psychological and political impetus for the formation of a United States of Africa.
When Nkrumah was criticized for paying little attention to Ghana or for wasting national resources in supporting external programmes, he reversed the argument and accused his opponents of being short-sighted.[181]
Failing
The litany of problems cited by many as the remote causes of the falling of Ghana include: coups in the past; poor governance; poorly implemented structural adjustment programmes in the past; over-bearing executive; weak parliament; poor security agencies; weak media; bureaucracy in public sector; corruption; and over liberalization of the Ghanaian economy.
A lack of commitment by leaders and the people to the Ghana project – a united, stable, developed and prosperous country where resources will be distributed equitably.
Most projects started by previous governments do not complete by the government in power. This means that tax payer monies are being wasted.
For instance, the Maternity and Children’s Block of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional is set to be pulled down for the construction of an entirely new edifice.
This is due to the fact that the facility has been abandoned for 44 years and thereby failed to meet the structural integrity test after an assessment by the construction firm tasked to ensure its completion.
In May 2020, Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo cut the sod for the construction of the project.
The construction and completion of the project which is expected to last for 36-months will be funded by the Deutsche Bank in Germany at a cost of €155 million.
Bottom line
It seems the aspirations of the founding fathers of the Ghanaian nation are yet to be met. And when they will be met is still unknown.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
