Is Our Society Suffering From Economic Illiteracy?

By Nuoh Shu'aib Jansbaka & PK Opoku Bonna

It is an undeniable fact that our educational system does not prepare us to become more enterprising, more so our governments do not invest enough in research but even turn to ignore its findings if any. However, instead of blaming the government outright, we would rather prefer to lay the blame squarely at the door steps of the individual who is the bedrock of the society and its members who later go up to form a government. We are aware that governments prepare societies for life through education; it is true that individuals can also influence government decisions and the type of policies it adopts. Adam Smith defined education as an "invisible hand" in the production line. In other words, education is to help the farmer, the blacksmith, the factory worker, the market trader, the fisher man etc. to produce more and efficiently.

Notwithstanding, more than 50 years after independence, Ghanaians and Africans in general still practice the backbreaking subsistence farming that has paid and still paying for education which is not ready to come to their rescue. In our society, there is a demarcation between industries that are for the so-called locals and those for the educated folks, which are mainly government and service industries that have, to a large extent, no impact on the production of real goods and services of economic value to our countries.

According to one professor at Makerere University in Uganda, one of the mistakes African leaders made after independence was to believe that mass education at any cost will help us develop our economies and industrialize quickly. As a result, we use a considerable part of our resources mainly from farming coupled with borrowing from outside to fund our projects. Forgetting that education, as we know it today, is a necessary component of production at a stage in their development during the industrial revolution. For instance, if we have to build a milk factory at Tema, then we should start by assisting the indigenous dairy farmers with our education to produce for the raw material not the inefficient bureaucratic government dairy farms.

In our part of the world, education is an end in itself, and once one is educated, s/he can expect to enjoy life at the expense of the poor local people even without any meaningful contribution. This is obviously seen in those occupying higher leadership positions today. Many of these individuals were elected or chosen to their positions not because of any achievements, leadership-qualities or any other yardstick to determine their eligibility, or capacity other than the fact that they carry big certificates or that they are affiliated to party gurus at the top and the circle continuous. We have failed to relate education to the development of our resources by adding more value to them for the creation of wealth and prosperity. We are just a bunch of parasitic consumers facilitating the sale of raw materials to the outside world.

The educated men and women in our part of the country fail to assist in the development of our resources partly because, as most of their counterparts in Ghana believe, education is a license to a greener pasture elsewhere, if for one reason or another, it does not already exist in your environment. You simply converge at where the foreign exchange is shared. Believe this, if white men were in charge of the northern Ghana today, which is the most poorest and undeveloped part of the country, many Africans would have been trooping in their numbers to the north for employment and greener pastures. This is not because the white man has more brains, than we blacks, but because we (blacks) have failed to understand the fundamental sacred role of education in our environments. For instance, the indigenous shaenut tree that grows wild in the north, and the nut exported by our country for foreign exchange can be planted and developed into big plantations to increase the yield and maximize the production. The industry will then generate secondary industries to process the nuts into various products including sophisticated ones like cosmetics, medicines etc. just as it is exploited in France and other European countries. If our so-called uneducated forefathers were able to extract many products from the nut to satisfy their needs, we should be able to do more with our education to add more value to them. This will undoubtedly create more economic opportunities from bottom up and provide employment for the skilled and unskilled workers alike.

The Savannah, which covers about 72% of the land area of Ghana, is an ideal place for rearing animals, and we can turn animal husbandry (cow, sheep, goat etc.) into a huge industry in the north to produce meat, milk and leather products for home consumption and for export. This will only be possible if we start by assisting the local farmers with materials and the relevant know how to gradually expand and develop into big ranches. This will help alleviate poverty at the grass roots level, generate prosperity from bottom up and preserve our scarce foreign exchange if not generate more. Depending on our determination, planning and effective monitoring to see the plan through, we can achieve the goal within 5 to 10 years. The Scandinavian countries, Holland, Australia and New Zealand all used animal husbandry as the basic industry for their development, and it was amazed to hear that Benin Republic had dairy products containing melamine from China.

Marmite, which is full of vitamin B complex and made from "juni”, has market in Europe and they are demanded in the form of "pkali" in West Africa. "Chihaa" also produces oil and has many other uses. Leaves of the baobab tree, which our people call "Topkaraa", and it is known in the sub region as "Kooka", has good market in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and some parts of Cameroon. Our topkaraa is superior to the ones produced in those areas. It is established that the French are now conducting a research into the leaves, seeds and back of the tree for medicinal uses. This tree can be turned into a big industry bringing in millions of dollars into our economy. Even "salinvaama", known as "mulookhia" in the Arab world, which grows in the wild at the north without any economic value to us, is cultivated and sold at supper markets in the Arab countries. A small amount of it in a sachet (200gms) enough to prepare soup will cost not less than a dollar. "Gasew" can be refined, bottled for local consumption and for export. As for the nutrients, we can leave that to the scientists at the laboratories, but it is known that it is a good fruit drink, very sweet and without artificial additives. Gasew is better than many of such drinks sold around the world and we only need to let the world know about this through marketing and good PR.

The land at Wa is full of glass and we can build factories or invite outside investment to exploit and develop the industry. These are few examples, and there are thousands more, which can sustain the northern Ghana and beyond if developed and managed properly. It will only require the creative invisible hands of the educated men and women to mass produce and add more value to these resources. With money from these products, we can grow into many other areas as well as search for more natural resources which are embedded in the ground, and they are more than what anyone can imagine.

We believe that most of our leaders including the elected parliamentarians today do not even have any comprehensive economic plan of their own, with key projects to be implemented at any particular time, approach the government and horse trade their votes with the government for their implementation. Any time many of these individuals talk about development they mostly mean the provision of toilets, gari factories, secondary roads, and other infrastructure because so far as they are concerned, the funding will simply come from the central government who will in turn borrow from our colonial masters and other western world. However, the infrastructure they build today, if any, would not even last long if we can not link them to the development of our resources to maintain them. What we need is a comprehensive development in which the economy is built from bottom up, and not the other way round hopping that the benefits will trickle down to the villages and alleviate poverty. For more than 50 years now, this has not worked for Ghana; we therefore need to change course and change the way we think. We started with the Malaysians but now they are far ahead of us due to political vindictiveness and irresponsible governments. Ghana has about 60 to 70% of uncultivated lands for farming that can be used to produce more food for local consumption and for export. This can only happen if we help our farmers (those already in the subsistence farming) to move gradually into big efficient modern mechanized farming. But instead of progressing, we are rather retrogressing. The few tractors that we once have at the farming communities have long disappeared, and it appears we have a long way to go before we can even dream of having well equipped mechanized farms. We can not mad rush to industrialization without developing our agricultural sector. It is the most important yet the easiest to accomplish, and all respectable countries got that done first. Let us note that Rice, meat, milk etc. may cost more than crude oil tomorrow. The Golf countries knowing this have already acquired lands in Sudan and some Asian countries to produce food for their own consumption. The last world food crisis in which some supplying countries refused to sell their food to them taught them a big lesson. When is mother Ghana going to learn?

Ghana exported logs until 1994 without developing the wood and furniture industry to international standard in order to add more value to the forest and create more jobs. If we had planned and managed our timber resources well, we could have at least, reduced the presence of our younger brothers and sisters in Kumasi, Accra and Tarkoradi selling handkerchiefs and dog chains along the streets. Ghana has neglected this industry, and as a result, we do not have wood and furniture factories able to produce high quality, world class wood products for supply in the country and for export. However, there is still a glimmer of hope if we care to listen; we can still invite leading designer furniture companies like IKEA and others to come and produce in Ghana so that our youths will be employed and also learn from them. This is how, we believe, some countries copy technology from others. America copied most of her technical knowhow from Israel and Japan by inviting most of them to America. Ghana can do same; it is never too late for us. We must think of moving forward in a very affirmative direction. Too much politics, this one is from here, that one is from there, would not help our country. Our educated folks must be seen in this forward thinking.

Our fishing industry is also woefully underdeveloped, and remains unchanged since it was left some 100 or 200 years ago by our great grandfathers. If one lives in Accra, Cape Coast or Takoradi and would like to confirm this, just go to James Town and the other areas and see how fishing is still done in our country. Surprisingly, this is the plight of those in the nation's capital and some other parts of the country. This situation is even far worse in other fishing communities in Ghana. We can not alleviate poverty and build our economy from bottom up without assisting our farmers, fishermen and the small scale traders with materials and the know-how to increase their yield. Alleviation of poverty at the deprived areas is not a handout, but investments that will generate more economic activities in those areas to increase our GDP and GWP. The country has great potential in the fishing industry, but it is yet to be exploited. $150,000,000 claimed to have been invested in this industry at this time is just less than enough.

The situation with gold and other minerals are not different; Ghana has already made unpardonable mistakes by selling out our mineral resources (gold, diamond, manganese, etc) to Foreign Investors who have done us more harm than good, without realising the damage done to our country by our leaders. Look at what is happening in the mining towns in the country. No any standard infrastructure, no proper drinking water, the citizens even find it difficult to get application forms to apply for the jobs which suppose to be theirs. However, their lands have been taken away from them, their occupation have been robbed, their rights of quality education have also been denied due to negligence, willful misconducts, lack of proper supervision, selfishness and greed on the part of our leaders. Why should Ghana cheaply export raw gold, raw cocoa, raw timber etc to the international market without thinking of processing them to add some value to them for more competitive prices at the internal scene? What is preventing Ghana and Africa in general to create jobs from our abundant resources?

Just look at all these resources including timber and cocoa, why should Ghana be considered as one of the poorest countries in the world? Why should Africa be considered as the poorest continent?

The answer is probably very simple: our policy makers are not competent enough to handle our affairs. Or that they are too greedy and selfish to consider the plight of the poor and the disadvantage ones in our mist. Ghanaians still go to Dubai and Saudi Arabia to buy quality gold chains and other ornaments that are far superior to those obtainable in Ghana as one may say. If we were seriously applying the principle of comparative advantage, we would have by now been leading in the production of world class gold watches, wedding rings, necklaces, earrings and other gold products with made in Ghana “proudly” printed on them for export and not the Swiss. It is regrettable that we could not even at the national level develop any of the industries that we have comparative advantage in since independence. All what our leaders care for is looking for loans or natural resources in the form of raw materials export them and embezzle the hard gained foreign exchange in unsustainable façade and luxuries.

Ghana considers brain drain as a problem whiles we fail to make any meaningful use of our young and dynamic individuals.

India is not worried about brain drain. It is not even considered as a problem in India at all. This is because its citizens acquire more skills at the west and also make enough capital to establish businesses back in India. The IT industry in India started and flourished as a result of this. But we Africans complain because, the successful ones always remain where they succeeded to enjoy their cookies alone. As far as most of us are concerned, it is the survival of the fitters. But most people turn to forget that animals also cooperate for survival. In fact, education as it is in Ghana and in Africa today is one of the main causes of our misery and lack of development and we must be ashamed of ourselves. We should remember that orientation and mental attitude of the individual is very important as many great discoveries and ideas in the world today were started and executed in other countries by individuals in neighborhood garages. Ghana, the star of Africa must learn better.

Authors: Nuoh Shu'aib Jansbaka & Opoku Bonna

E-mail: jansnuhu5000@yahoo.com