After a close analysis of Ghana's development woes, I believe I have identified some of the factors that have delayed (and are still delaying)the country's economic development. This is not an exhaustive list of the problems, just the few I have identified. Hopefully the country will unite and contribute to eliminating these bottlenecks that are choking the Ghanaian economy.
To
begin, Ghana as a nation does not have a clearly outlined economic growth
strategy. In fact, since the return to democratic rule in 1992, the country has
not been able to agree on a comprehensive development strategy. Institutions
charged with the design and proposal of growth strategies –like the National
Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the Ministry of Finance and Economic
Planning, and the Ministry of Local Government- have been filled with corrupt
and incompetent cohorts and political supporters who do not necessarily have the
needed skills, expertise and or commitment and dedication to draft feasible
economic development policies. The result is that the nation runs on a “trial
and error” basis, continuously experimenting with a myriad of growth strategies
without necessarily considering their feasibility, necessity or effectiveness.
In essence, the inefficiencies of successive governments and state institutions
have led to retarded political and economic growth.
Related
to the above point is the issue of misplaced policymaking. Ghana’s return to
democratic rule in 1992 coincided with the fall of communism. Consequently, the
nation became a victim of the transfer of blueprints for economic growth
developed by Western experts who did not necessarily understand or appreciate
the dynamisms and specificities of Ghana’s development problems. Western
concepts of economic liberalization were forced on Ghana even though the
country’s ill equipped state bureaucracy had no idea how to make it work.
Decades of military rule and bad governance had robbed the state bureaucracy of
the little expertise it had accrued and yet it was forced to hastily implement
economic policies which were not tailored to suit the country’s economic
problems. Development partners like the World Bank and IMF and developed
countries like the US and Britain made democratization and market
liberalization a condition for aid and therefore forced the Rawlings government
to hastily establish a semblance of democratic rule in order to court foreign
aid.
As
a result of the lack of effective institutions to produce feasible economic
policies, Ghana’s economic development strategies are largely derived from the
policy recommendations of donor partners like the World Trade Organization, the
IMF and World Bank and from developed states like the US and Britain. A key
problem of this measure is that it is a top-down approach and so economic
policies are, simply, a transfer of policies from one context to Ghana without
being necessarily tailored to address the specific development problems that
the country faces. Rather than formulating its own growth strategies, Ghana
relies on the recommendation of outside experts who may lack or simply ignore
knowledge on the peculiarities of Ghana’s economic problems and this is
reflects in the limited successes of growth strategies like the World Bank’s
Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). In his analysis of economic growth in
South Korea, Kholi (2004) notes the importance of an efficient state
bureaucracy in the implementation of economic policies and the establishment of
a cohesive capitalist state and how this can engender rapid economic growth.
South Korea under Park Chung Hee was an undemocratic state with a state
controlled command economy and yet the efficient bureaucratic structures
established by the Japanese formed the basis for a cohesive capitalist state in
which the role of the state and the private sector was effectively coordinated
and harnessed to initiate rapid, sustainable economic growth. In the case of
Ghana, these efficient bureaucratic structures have never been in place. The
British colonial administration did not lay the foundations for an efficient
bureaucracy largely because it had no need of it. Colonial policies were
enforced through the traditional authority of chiefs and enforcement by the
colonial police and as such no reliable bureaucratic structures were set up. Also,
during the tumultuous period of 1966 to 1992, the little improvements made on
the state bureaucracy were set back by the series of military juntas and bad
governments that dominated the period.
Another
reason for Ghana’s volatile economic growth is the lack of cohesion between the
state apparatus and the private sector. It is no news that President Rawlings
opposed democratic rule, he viewed it as elitist and opted for some kind of
grassroots socialism founded on the support of Ghana’s proletariat class. This
tension between the government and the perceived bourgeoisie capitalist class
culminated in the lack of cohesion between the state and the private sector
even after market liberalization took off. This lack of cohesion has made it
difficult to coordinate the contributions of the state and public sectors to
spur rapid development. As Kholi (2004) rightfully points out, cohesion between
the state and the private sector is vital for economic growth. Unfortunately,
Ghana lacks this cohesion; the ‘states mistrust of the private sector and vice
versa has created a rift between the two sectors such that each sector regards
the other as an opponent rather than a partner in development. There is a
myriad of civil society organizations, interest and pressure groups etc which
has created a fragmented-multi class state incapable of reconciling its
differences and working together for the development of the country. The
disconnection between the state and the private sector makes nonsense of the
free market and liberalized trade policies that Ghana has put in place and
renders these policies minimally successful in terms of economic benefits.
Please comment your opinions and contributions. Feel free to draw a comparison with other countries.
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