Statement: So Where Are The NPP Brains?

On the last day of August, the Danquah institute, of which I am a proud executive member, created an important platform for the leader of Ghana's main opposition party to lay out his vision for the Ghanaian people. He did and about five major radio stations and (Metro TV) carried it live to the hearing of millions of Ghanaians, both at home and abroad. Newspapers and news websites have carried the speech in full (including audio) for those who missed it and others to chew on the details.

However, with the notable exception of Hayford Atta-Krufi and the controversial Okoampa-Ahoofe, I am yet to come across any adept swimmer from the pool of intellectual depth, particularly on the NPP end of the pool, taking the time to write and expand on the party’s vision for the country, as articulated by its leader. Instead, they have all allowed the nation to be pissed and stoned on the synergistic hallucination from the gossips and indiscretion of our prominent men and women as embarrassingly exposed in the leaked US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks. The important things he outlined in the speech have been lost in this thick cloud of Wikileaks smoke and we need to quickly, as a nation, clear this unhelpful artificial dust and get to interrogate issues of importance to the nation.

So I ask the question, where are the NPP brains? Why are they not taking Nana’s speech and going to work on them to explain in the written and spoken word what can be done in Ghana by Ghanaians under a competent, confident, committed leadership with clarity in direction on the cart of urgency and purposefulness?

The Liberty Lecture was the first time, since his election in August 2010, on Ghanaian soil that such a major platform was created for Nana Akufo-Addo to tell Ghanaians what he intends to do if elected president in 2012. What was contained in the speech, if added to his earlier speech in Germany - where the emphasis was more on science and technology, research and development - gave clear indications on what can be expected in the 2012 Manifesto of the New Patriotic Party. I can sum it all up in three words: EDUCATION, SKILLS AND JOBS.

Nana Addo said, “What the evidence from history and the experience of many countries have shown is that it is not natural resources that build nations. It is people who build nations. It is the people of Ghana, Ghanaians like you and I, and especially the youth of today, who are going to build Ghana.”

He continued to show why he is so big on education, “What the evidence from history and the experience of many countries have shown is that it is not natural resources that build nations. It is people who build nations. It is the people of Ghana, Ghanaians like you and I, and especially the youth of today, who are going to build Ghana.”

This week, we are likely to see the wisdom in President Kufuor’s decision to extend secondary education to four years. This year has registered the best results at the West African Secondary School Examinations, probably for more than 15 years. We are being confronted with empirical evidence why we should not toil with the education of our kids. What would be the response of Government?

At the Liberty Lecture, Nana Ado said, “the next NPP administration will NOT, repeat, NOT seek to change the current JSS-SSS format for at least 4 years.” I had a discussion with Nana Addo on this, this Sunday, and his response was straight forward, “I gave my word not to change it, if faced with empirical evidence that the four-year experiment is yielding extraordinary results, we would have to rethink for the sake of our children’s education.”

As fate will have it, just as I got to this part of this piece I am writing, at the lounge of Golden Tulip Hotel, Kumasi, three deputy ministers walked in accompanying the Vice President. In my discussions with them, I mentioned the Senior High School results, Mahama Ayariga’s response was this, “the results are remarkable. In fact there are so many of them getting As that we are struggling to find places for them at the tertiary level. The kids have done so well.”

The NPP should be very active in occupying that space of competent governance. With Nana Addo’s comprehensive statement on how he intends to build a society of aspirations and opportunities, he has given the party both the intellectual and practical tools to address the concerns and aspirations of the Ghanaian people.

He said, for example, “During my nationwide Listening Campaign, the cries of the people, whether it is about cost of education, bad roads, high cost of living, low retail sales, all come down to one thing: we need good jobs with good income. But the truth must be told. Unless we industrialise with the goal of adding significant value to our primary products, be they heavy or otherwise, we cannot create the necessary numbers of high-paying jobs that will enhance the living standards of the mass of our people. Raw material producing economies do not create prosperity for the masses.”

This explains in simple terms his life-long commitment to the structural transformation of the Ghanaian economy. Those who have followed his political career can tell that his vision as laid out in his 1998 presidential bid was consistent with what he said in 2008 and what he is saying today.

In the Liberty Lecture he identified certain key triggers for industrialisation, first focusing on thing that we are already doing well and expressing a commitment to actively support the private sector winners in those areas. Typical of these are the pharmaceutical industry, helping them to be major international players like in India; medical tourism, by supporting more Ghanaians (home and abroad) to set up excellent international health centres – like Cardiothoracic Centre, Pro Vita, Holy Trinity Spa and Health Farm, and more; commercial farming, by very actively supporting the creation and expansion of commercial farms into global champions and modernising agriculture based on the Millennium Challenge Compact model of helping small-scale farmers to modernise, grow and expand.

One of the focus areas I found most exciting and visionary is Nana Addo’s recognition of palm oil as a lightly tapped mine for Ghana’s development. Global demand for oil palm plantations makes it a multi-billion growth industry, which we are well-placed to capitalise on.

I was in the Western Region last week and met with some industrialists, the concern was that palm oil trees are being uprooted to give ground for rubber plantations because the latter fetches more money as a raw material. My response was that it is so because we have not added value to the benefit of those who were compelled by commercial considerations to give up on palm oil.

Palm is a major potential area for us for the next fifty years because of biodiesel. It is more productive per hectare than either soya or rapeseed for biodiesel. Chinese, Indian and European demand for biodiesel is more than world production can cope.

On top of that, palm oil is the most significant vegetable oil in the world, accounting for 30% of world edible oil production.

Nana Addo’s vision to support large scale palm oil plantations to create jobs and compete with Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria in this crop for the future is most laudable. We can create bigger and more Juaben Oil Mills, Ayiem Oil Mills, and Obooma Oil Mills in Ghana. If well executed, this can fetch us between $5 and $10 billion annually within a decade. Ghana must become a major exporter of palm oil. We already have winners to show they way.

What also got my attention was Nana Addo’s nationalist commitment. This is also one area that he has been consistent. In 2006 he coined the phrase ‘indigenous capitalism’. In 2008, he used the term ‘Ghanaian economic empowerment.’ At the Liberty Lecture he said he will introduce a comprehensive Local Content Policy, covering every facet of economic activity. “The Ghanaian entrepreneur is calling for a policy that looks after his or her interest on the same basis as the foreign investor who is here to supplement our own local efforts,” he pointed out.

NPP is for the private sector and Nana Addo made it clear that the bulk of private sector activity can be found at the micro level, so a policy that ignores them will not work for Ghana. His idea is to support and promote self-employment with management training, greater access to markets, access and preferences in public procurement to give hope to the hordes of street peddlers in Accra, of kiosk owners, and of lotto and mobile phone card roadside entrepreneurs.”

His idea to establish a one stop investment promotion unit called the Economic Development Authority, which I understand may be renamed CEDI (Centre for Economic Development and Investment/Integration – not sure) has been criticised by the ruling party as ‘too bureaucratic.’ Is it not having various economic investment organisations rather that elongate the red tape? It is working in Singapore, China, Malaysia and elsewhere, so it can work here too. We can do with a lead government agency for planning and executing strategies to make Ghana a truly global business destination.

The need to integrate Ghana’s economic activities for industrialisation is key and this is seen in his vision. Nana Addo said, “We are determined to build a petrochemical industry here in Ghana, creating linkages with other businesses that will turn Ghana into a light industry centre for our region. We intend to convert our petrochemicals into hundreds of industrial and consumer products produced right here in Ghana.”

Realising President Kufuor’s dream of a building an integrated aluminium industry from a natural resource that can fetch us far more money than oil, gold and cocoa is crucial. Ghana’s bauxite deposits carry a potential value of $350 billion. The steel industry should also come on stream.

In conclusion, this is what I got from Nana Addo’s plans for Ghana. THE NPP WILL GET GHANA BACK TO WORK. NANA ADDO WILL PUT GHANA BACK TO WORK. HIS FOCUS IS ON JOBS. EDUCATION MEANS JOBS. SKILLS MEANS JOBS. ACCESS TO CREDIT MEANS JOBS. INDUSTRIALISATION MEANS JOBS. MORDENISING AGRIC MEANS JOBS. STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY MEANS MORE INVESTMENTS FOR MORE JOBS.

I pray that the brains in the NPP will focus the nation’s brains and attention on these matters of serious national interest. We are not fated to be poor. But the fight against poverty must begin in earnest with the fight to get matters of real national interest to occupy the space of national discourse as opposed to matters that may interest the sensations of the public. Let the nation feel the expressions of NPP brains for our collective gain.

The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute. gabby@danquahinstitute.org