Is economy economics? Management problem of Ghana’s economy in perspective

The aim of this article is to address the misconception and bad analyses that are been broadcasted on radio and TV stations together with panel analysts whom they normally classify as economic gurus.

The essence of a country’s development and advancement is built on two factors such as management of the economy and economic management by efficiency.

In an absence of efficiency in management then only very poor goals will be achieved.

Economy according to Wikipedia “is an area of the production, distribution, and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the production, use, and management of scarce resources’.”

In this case, we do not have an economy because what do we produce, distribute and trade within large quantities to have a high impact on our Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Ironically, we all know the kind of goods and services we consume in this country, foreign goods, and services.

According to the University of Buffalo, College of Arts and Sciences “Economics is the study of scarcity and its implications for the use of resources, production of goods and services, growth of production and welfare over time, and a great variety of other complex issues of vital concern to society.”

In our case, everything that will make the economy strong is scarce and we, therefore, depend on the importation of everything, hence, the kind of economics we have in this country is something else.

Management is simply the act of getting things done through other people and what this means is that management decides what should be done, gets the people who are to do it, and sees that the job is done. By this simple definition, you will realize that we are not who we think we are because in this country only party lines operate and therefore no proper management practices, it’s only lip service.

In management, if decisions do not conform to plans, it is management's duty to take control measures. In Ghana, can we take control like this within our institutions? No. Everything is about the government and their party as well as the winner takes all prescribed in the constitution. So, you cannot have wrong models in the management of the economy and will not go to International Monetary Fund (IMF) for bail out.

The issue of Ghana crisis for that matter the globally current economic difficulties and phenomenal of economies is a big challenge. All these economic challenges can be tagged against bad human factors within Ghana's economy. It appears the management of the economy is been affected by bad human factors such as intentionally appointing over and above the needed number of personnel in the public sector and civil servants positions.

Many of these personnel are not performing because they don’t have job descriptions to show what they were engaged to do but only for their names to be captured in the government payroll. Hence, governments’ appointment methods are problematic and create chaos in the government payroll.

Another bad human factor affecting the economy of Ghana is dishonesty and corruption because the extortion by officers and personnel to fill their pockets illegally is so huge that no serious country would allow this broad-day robbery in the name of serving the country to exist.

More so, misinformed political practices, in fact, divide society more apart from thinking and working together as one people harmoniously due to the many citizens who are uneducated about English Language. Youth adoption and adaption of bad technological applications and digital practices lead them astray because social media or media in any form is an opportunity to help people strive but in our economy, they are scammers because of what they use technology and digital platforms to do.

Many government employees and civil servants pretend to be working which in fact, there is very little work to do. A country that is serious will consider change management and organizational change across all the public and civil sectors instead of the constant rituals of head counts to get rid of ghost names when they are the same government people and workers who put them in there.

For example, a farmer in Ghana cannot just get up and put his name onto the government payroll if not the very people working for the public and the government.

Notwithstanding, the governments as political parties, create unnecessary agendas such as establishing new commissions, agencies and departments without equal job design, which over bloats the government payroll. One wonders, what assessments do the governments always do before creating such sectors or units?

The citizens or Ghanaians in society are not also helping the economy because the free market destroys the control of prices and therefore any increase in fuel prices results in the market men and women or traders increasing prices of goods, services and items astronomically without any recourse to the hardships. Government spending on political bias, in that, they buy expensive gifts for people in the society without any budget for them but cutting corners is part of Ghana’s economic woes since our constitution contains a lot of flaws which governments are exploiting to do what they are doing.

Government’s failures to negotiate effectively removing or stopping certain parliamentary allowances such as exgratia (“of payment, given as a favour or from a sense of moral obligation rather than because of any legal requirement”), and unprofessional allowances and bonuses for public sector officers, civil sector workers and the government appointees.

At most, there should not be a type of tax target for GRA workers (they are appointed to work with duties and responsibilities), it is a very unscrupulous practice against the tenants of employment and organizational performance measurements or index. The local government departments and units are unproductive since they seem to only be performing government campaigns in pretends.

All these mentioned above are bad human factors due to poor management of the economy by economic managers who are politicians and not professionals or experts. To manage is to plan, organize, forecast, direct and control but this simple definition of management is not been properly complied with or practiced in Ghana. What is common is party line appointments and initiatives. Governments are fond of creating disgruntled and witchcraft policies which is why the country is constantly struggling.

Economic management on the other hand refers to the personnel appointed in executing the policies enacted to derive the country to a better level. Such personnel are appointed on political lines and therefore have lost the economic management principles and morals.

So basically, our economic management teams always lack the honesty and truthfulness of being fair in their policy directions. Hence, bad decisions are made because of political power and not the entire country at heart.

This current economic meltdown is a result of poor management of the economy by the people appointed to work including the very bad and polarized economic management team.

Those who sit on television and radio stations or on social media and query the finance minister must rethink that if they remove him today and put you there what can you change without what he has proposed to be doing to get the economy back on track? Are you going to carry your money and come and help advance Ghana or you will be paid to be performing that same capacity?

If the situation that we are in now was a corporate business entity or private business, the minister as CEO in the corporate business would have been replaced long since but such replacement cannot just be done under government and governance practices. Management principles do not support such change management practice in national decision-making. Change of public appointees is only the feel of a president since the constitution gives him such powers.

In the nutshell, Ghana’s woes have been so because of the porous nature of the constitution, if the constitution is not changed to suit management practices and whereby professionals will be employed or appointed by Ghana to spearhead the public and civil sectors and government offices. Governments must reduce the constant appointment of party members and financiers been seen as a reward appointment for contracts to pay themselves back.

This is a very bad economic management practice and we must change the constitution. Management professionals needed to manage the economy must be written in the constitution and remove those sections that give too much power to a president and the government to be appointed in all sectors. Citizens must be able to make certain decisions about the country without big trouble compared to the current constitution.

If we don’t change or amend the constitution and pretend to be electing leaders to make the country better is like we don’t know what is left or right and also, what is good or bad. Without management principles defined and captured in the constitution, Ghana will always have retrospective development with constant hardships.

Another bottle neck we must remove from the constitution and any other LIs that seem to direct politicians to incur huge expenditures during campaigns and then use state offices as rewards to pay themselves must be discouraged in the same constitution. Serving in the public sector and government offices is an opportunity to sacrifice for the country and so, if you want to be rich and make money or drive V8s, then you do that through your private or corporate business ventures.

Again, being in public or government office and taking all the business opportunities in the country is bad and discriminatory. If we don’t tackle these fundamental problems by amending or changing the constitution then we go nowhere and we are not whom we think we are.

Going forward, I would advise the media houses to always invite management professionals and experts to address the economic mismanagement and the public or government office holders’ malpractices and performance measurements.

But should not be inviting public officers in political positions to be ranting on newspaper headlines that are already communication documents. Why invite MPs to be ranting on newspaper headlines? Is it their responsibility or constitutional mandate?

I think the media houses can do better. Resource persons for some of the live programs are unprofessional. Citizens and other professionals should be measuring the public officers’ performance and behaviours but not these same officers assessing themselves and also taking party positions.

Ironically, this is a puzzle, how are lawyers and law developed in a country? Discuss.