Can Ghana build prosperity without ethical markets and real accountability

Ghanafuor, Vice President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang is right in her observation that markets must serve people through accountability and transparency.

That said, it matters not what our hard-of-hearing, criticism-averse, and oft self-seeking ruling elites do if the political will to demand ethical entrepreneurship and to punish errant private sector players by prosecuting them is lacking.

Without that will, prosperity will elude the masses.

The painful truth is that so long as our private sector remains jam-packed with unethical, thoroughly dishonest, and exploitative entrepreneurs aided by unethical lawyers to rip Mother Ghana off, the masses will continue to suffer needlessly. Full stop.

Let us, as wise and aspirational Africans, therefore focus on encouraging ethical investors, both local and foreign, if we want our nation to thrive and be transformed into a prosperous and equitable society in which all demographics enjoy high-quality lives. Simple.

In that light, let us start by banning entities registered in offshore tax havens such as Mauritius and Luxembourg from investing in Ghana.

They exist for the sole purpose of facilitating capital flight, money laundering, and tax avoidance in their shareholders’ countries of domicile.

We need investors in the mould of Yvon Chouinard, the ethical billionaire American founder of Patagonia, the outdoor apparel and accessories giant. A word to the wise…

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