Good morning, Ghanafu)! I know you are not so well, considering where our economy is, right now – in a quagmire – in a deep swamp of despair! O, no! No! I’m not a doomsday prophet – but anyone with eyes to see will be able to tell you that even if the IMF approves our programme and gives us the 3 Billion Dollars we seek, it will only be the first step in a sequence of thousands of steps that must be taken to steer the ship of the economy into some sort of better place – and build a solid foundation on which our economy can truly take off.
I want to take you to South Korea, this morning, as we contemplate the example of Samsung Electronics, one of South Korea’s largest chaebols – that is to say, a large, family-controlled Korean business conglomerate. Samsung, in 1970, was making cheap TV sets for Sanyo.
After a while, Samsung started producing plasma and flat-screen displays and other devices. By the middle of the 1990s, several shocks in the market led to market turmoil for Samsung on the back of increased competition, cheaper products from China and excess capacity. What did Samsung do? It rode on the back of the same Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 – a crisis o – and made a strategic shift. Samsung started producing technically superior products and invested heavily in research and development.
In fact, by its 2009 fiscal year, Samsung’s R&D spending had shot up to a staggering 7.6 Trillion Won (over $7 Billion at the time). By 2014, that had doubled again to $13.4 Billion, making Samsung the top-ranked R&D spender in IT globally and ranked second across all industries worldwide.
The result? In 2014, Samsung was ranked number 7 by Forbes in terms of the world’s most valuable brands, with a market cap valued at $199 Billion in May 2015! The same company that struggled in the 1970s was now chilling and “bambaing” with the “big boys” in industry.
I share this with you because any astute businessman or woman will be quick to tell you that every country is like a company – just on a much larger scale. The same principles apply – and if you get that right, like Samsung did, you would have hit the economic bull’s eye!
There’s a whole lot Ghana can learn from the change in fortunes and progress of Samsung in terms of comparative advantage and R&D. What, I ask, are our R&D – Research and Development drives as a country? How are we capitalising on our resources and strengths in a world where finding your niche could well be your breakthrough?
I’ll tell you!We research nothing, develop nothing and produce nothing! That is why we are poor! This also explains why, even when we produce something, we allow others from outside to benefit more from it.
Have you ever wondered why we produce the finest cocoa the world over from right here in Ghana – yet faraway Switzerland is considered the Chocolate Capital of the World? The Swiss do not have a single cocoa tree – but they have the enviable reputation of producing the finest quality chocolates – whether milk chocolate or dark.
The point is – they got that right! Is this something we cannot do? Can we not produce enough to satisfy not just our cocoa-consuming market but those along the West-African coast and even beyond to the rest of our continent? Can you just pause and imagine what sort of revenue that would rake in for Ghana?
But, no! We sit on our arses and go to the IMF and beg for what we can more than do for ourselves! So, yes! The Swiss chocolates will still fill the shelves of confectionary stores from Algiers to Nouakchott and Accra to Yamoussoukro! We are, clearly, failing to think and exploit the advantage we have!
How many of us, today, can even randomly decide to consume a bar of chocolate – without counting the cost? How many Ghanaians?
Yet Switzerland does not produce any cocoa! It’s on account of our paucity of thinking and our chronic election of leaders who only talk big and do precious little! If all the big talk of 1D1F and Planting for Food and Jobs and Rearing for Food and Jobs and all those other fanciful titles given to projects had yielded much, trust me, even with Covid-19 and the Russo-Ukrainian war – all coupled with our reckless borrowing – even these would not have been enough to sink us so low! Like I said, though, we seem to prefer leaders who do talk-talk rather than ones who would do the work-work. We have been marking time since the days after Nkrumah. When are we ever going to wake up and smell the coffee? When will we put our thinking caps and our working garb on? When?
We cannot pay our Special Prosecutor and some of his staff for 16 months – yet our President flies in luxury, happily globetrotting across the world on our account! One of the very people meant to fight corruption isn’t even getting paid and some noise must be made before, finally, a determination is made. What a shameful country! That says a whole lot about how much of a priority the fight against corruption is for this administration, doesn’t it?
In fact, Bloomberg, in a recent article dated December the 8th, mocked Ghana when it wrote in a story: “A few blocks from Ghana’s State House in Accra sits a 14.5 acre parcel of prime real estate with a football field-sized hole in the middle of it. What should be emerging from the ground is the frame and sweeping, concave roof of the futuristic, 5,000-seat National Cathedral of Ghana. Instead, the project has stalled, a victim of an economic crisis in the West African country, which was until recently one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a magnet for foreign investment. The cathedral’s original price tag of a $100 million has quadrupled amid an economic crisis that has seen record inflation and the Cedi, the world’s worst performing currency this year, lost close to 60% of its value — almost double that of Ukraine.” But what really got me upset, from this article, was this: “[The Cathedral] is the perfect example of the spending spree: Ghana is behaving like a fabulously rich sultanate in the Gulf rather than a developing country just attaining frontier market status.” In other words, as a State, this implies our leaders do not know how to cut the coat of our collective prosperous aspirations according to the cloth of our available resources. This, fellow Ghanaians, is how Bloomberg jabbed this administration – and all of us, for that matter! What an epic disgrace! Verandah mpo wo ni bi. 3nso wo si kyinkyina a, wo b3 nyen adwe! Oyiwa!
Look, some things simply do not make sense to me about how we choose to run our country! Why? When you consider the most populous nations in Africa, you would realise Nigeria leads with over 206 million people; Ethiopia follows with over 115 million; next is Egypt, with over a 102 million; then the DR Congo with over 89 million; Tanzania and South Africa round up that bracket with over 59 million people each. Now, why am I highlighting this? Well, it will shock you to learn that Ghana, with a population a little in excess of 31 million people, is the biggest importer of chicken in the whole of Africa, with 227,903 tonnes imported in 2021 alone! Did that sink in? Are you stunned yet? But wait! There’s more, actually. It gets even worse! According to EU Data, Ghana is not just the largest importer of chicken on the continent – it has been so for the past 5 years! This means that since 2017, we have imported more chicken than even the countries with the largest populations on our continent! Worse, still, is the fact that such wholesale, unbridled, unfettered, and unthinking importation has led 80% of our poultry farms to fold up with the remaining ones struggling to stay afloat – as revealed by the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers. Do you see how truly reckless and careless we are? Do you see, now, why I say going to the IMF is meaningless unless it is firmly tied to sound spending and economy-boosting programmes moving forward? These misleaders are the reckless bunch we keep electing, and as my senior, KSM, will say, they think “analog” when the world has gone “digital.” How, then, can such a crop of people, with antiquated ideas, lead us into the Promised Land? Ghanaians, wake up, o! Wake up, else we shall continue to see our economy play “Buga” with us!
I do not know when our Finance Minister is going to stop sounding like some new and eager Christian convert trying to proselytise others, but his incessant biblical quotations and allusions are becoming increasingly annoying for some of us. I’m not the devil. No! But I’m simply saying, if you get people into such a tight scrape – even being the good Christian you purport to be, you don’t solve the problem by slinging Bible verses at us. Someone please tell him – while he’s still at post, thanks to Mr. President’s pussyfooting for which only God knows why – to spare us the Bible-slapping and get down to fixing our economy! I mean! We tolerate too much hogwash in this country! Really!
The current cost of a loaf of bread is above the minimum wage – and even more than the new minimum wage planned for next year – and all we can do is lift verses from the Bible and celebrate at simply getting a Staff-Level Agreement from the IMF? Ah, well! I guess while some shoot for the stars and beyond, there will always be others shooting for the top of some cathedral!
All I’m trying to say, Ghanafu), is this: if we shall change our fortunes, as a country, we need to cease with this asinine tendency of voting into office inept leaders who only blow hot air. Period. But as I end, let me just paint for you the true picture of where we are today!
