One may ask why this situation persists despite the quality of personnel
in terms of erudition that have acted in several capacities of leadership as
far as the need for the advancement of our socioeconomic progress is and has
been concerned. I want to believe a possible cause of this could be due to the
issue of intellectual dishonesty on the part of our technocrats in their bid to
please their political heads. In other cases, they might easily acquiesce to
the demands of these political leaders at the expense of their intellectually
informed positions. The second and most profound possible cause of the continued
disarticulation of our economy could be the ease with which our governments
seem to have bought into the capitalist tool of the so called “private sector
as the engine of growth.”
It is easy to assert that, the back bone of the very successful Western
Enterprises has been their governments. Going back to the beginning of the
world economic system as we know it today, one would have realized that, the
quests for the discovery of the new territories such as Africa by explorers and
merchants, with subsequent exploitation that has so developed the Western World
was funded by their governments or the sort of leadership they had at the time.
A classic example of such an obvious and colossal direct government support for
the private sector in current times has been the bail out of a number of giant
Western private establishments during the recent recession. Another very
important exemplar of state support for the establishment of a strong economic
system through direct support for indigenous private enterprise has been the
case of Toyota in Japan (www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691093). What prevents
the Ghanaian government from making Mechanical Lloyd the Toyota of the West
African sub region; rather than watching it remain in the mediocre state of a
mere assembling or worst still servicing and repair plant?
It is therefore sad to see our governments trying so hard to distant
themselves from the area of production- an indispensable prerequisite for any
economy which will make any meaningful progress in terms of enhancing a better
socioeconomic formation in its entirety. Government may not necessarily be
expected to participate in production per state enterprises and all, but what
prevents us from aggressively supporting worthwhile and time tested indigenous
ventures in this direction? We encourage a private sector which is nonexistent
in this country- at least indigenously. We have in no way empowered any
indigenous enterprise in this land to create a huge capital base that will
support that call for private sector participation which will drive our
economy. It is for this reason that we find our leaders running around the
globe to solicit for investors.
The foreign investors, knowing from their feasibility studies the
incoherent nature of our economic system will engage in ventures that will fall
in line with the colonialist mode of exploitation; that is, the quest for our
natural resources such as Minerals, Timber, etc. It therefore comes as no
surprise to see most of the giant foreign entities involved mostly in these
areas of our economy. The consequences being that, these expatriate firms
exploit our resources and repatriate almost all the profits that accrue
thereof. There has been no evidence in modern times of government
intervention in this process of capital repatriation from our land; hence areas
like Obuasi, Akwatia and other towns of their sort and surrounding villages
remain as decrepit as they are. Were some or most of these firms indigenous or
with a lot of government inputs, most of their outputs would have remained and
reinvested in the country, thus setting up other forms of productive
enterprises that will open up the now underdeveloped areas of our land that
remain a paradox when compared to the enclaves of development in this country,
where most of the fortunate citizens have found refuge; leaving the others at
the mercy of the poverty and paucity of social amenities and the lack of
other features of social development that characterize those areas.
Another frenzied reference to investment by our governments lately has
been the bubble of the service sector. These include cellular communication
networks and financial service providers which are almost all foreign owned
with very negligible or non- existent indigenous stakes. These firms, almost always
very prominent in the major cities, employ a small portion of the populace- as
usual, mostly those living in the comparatively developed areas, areas where
those who can afford their services are located. They make huge sums from the
generality of the populace and give close to nothing back in terms of
reinvestment. This relationship is necessarily very exploitative in every sense
with respect to our need to open up the various areas of our land to economic
development.
It is until local enterprises are
strengthened through the intervention of government to build a strong capital
base that will not be taken elsewhere, that we will be able to establish a
situation where capital will be readily available for regions like the
Northern, Ashanti and other regions to specialize in Agriculture on a
worthwhile scale so that other regions with a strong industrial base will
supply the Agricultural sectors with manufactured goods. But for the
exploitative mentality due to which our resources are shipped across the oceans
day in and day out, would we now be having our oil rigs in the Western Region
while having a refinery located far off in WATCH FOR THE PART 3 AND THE CONCLUDING PART NEXT WEEK
Send your articles to inewsgh@gmail.com or inbox us on your facebook page
0 comments:
Post a Comment