We currently have alot of presentation; people that on paper sound like when we give them the power Ghana will be a better place... Dr this, honourable this, but how it benefit society is another question, we as Ghanaian do not believe in practical ideas. But Mr Tetteh Quarshie had an idea and now it is our main foreign exchange earner...
None of this Dr, PHd. etc has brought anything as good as cocoa to our nation shore. That must be telling us something...... General PAk , the south Korea dictator with limited schooling ,left Korea Daewoo company. They are into shipping building, automobiles, construction big time, that is what good ideas do,
What Ghanaian need from the next government are ideas, delivering and implementation. Not sound bite politic, the current generation of politician we have are sub standard, low grade and lack vision to develop Ghana......intellectual midgets lacking foresight. We are nation blessed with bad leaders and the opposite had happened in Korea, Malaysia. Singapore, Chile, China,
Even Russian changed, we need a fundamental reform, dynamic, innovative and creative leadership and maybe younger, younger....
We should copy and plan like emerging Asian countries, small government, big country Send our students to those countries instead not already developed ex colonial masters.
The first thing to do is review current existing policies on all sectors of the economy and see how best to either open it up or create a state control economy on certain sectors but I must stress not STATE MANAGEMENT>>>>> When these sectors mature, the state will stop nursing them like babies and privatise them or float them as public limited companies PLC.
A) !) Free the port or make that port the cheapest to clear good in West Africa, I believe that will increase revenue because of more usage and volume usage. The benefit to the entire economy will be felt. Benefits,
1) Exporters will be attracted to the country as a gateway to West Africa market. 2) Ghanaian will benefit from cheap goods 3) Will increase the trade sector in Ghana, encourage individual to use that advantage to find markets outside Ghana, Hong Kong used to be the world warehouse.... 4) Business tourism will increase; hence our hospitality industry will benefit, e.g. Belgium with cars,
Indeed there other mitigating circumstances and disadvantages but i really believe it the way to go, we ought to try new things as the old system has not delivered, EG... telecom sector has created jobs in Ghana despite its shortcomings after it was opened up..
B) Governments should reduce spending, excessive lavish lifestyle, travels and channel resources to the needy and set up. Programmes to aid social mobility State official to cut down on excessive usage of luxury cars but use modest brand new second hand cars which is 40% cheaper than brand new ,..........
C) Reduce our embassies abroad except very important countries and rather establish trade centres, across CHINA ,USA, BRITAIN, and all the emerging Asian countries Singapore, Malaysia. We can appoint locals or nationals of those countries and give the limited authorisation to promote our business interest there, helping exporters, transfer of technologies and other mutually beneficial programmes.
D) Invest heavily in food preservation technology to save our food from getting rotten before it reaches the customer either locally or for export /.
E)
Strengthen the judiciary, purge it and get rid of corrupt elements, we can not stop corruption but we can put in place effective judiciary to police the entire system, no one is above the law even the president.
F)
We should seriously consider parking a farm tractor in any farming district, sort out the land ownership deal with the chief, hence any Ghanaian looking to engage in farming, at least the state will ploy the land, fertilise it and allocate it... agric student at university, army personnel should be encourage to team up with local farmers and go in mechanised farming big time for export or local consumption. And do away with cutlass as we approach 2009//// Total modernisation of the agric sector, not building executive mansion, stadium and wasteful investment for self aggrandisement.
G)
Our education produces boys and girls looking for work , how about the opposite , produce students who can come out to create work, we are too academic a, structured intelligence but delivers nothing....hence they are all seeking work in the ministries.....government jobs, political jobs etc.
H)
Reduce military spending, let the army go into mechanised farming , because they have the manpower and logistic to do that, make it a more profitable organisation, rather than engage in activities that subvert the state, oppress the citizen for the sole benefit of the executive, e.g. Togo and other African countries. We can model our army along what Sweden, Switzerland rather than USA, U.K Stop all this Saddam style of military posturing, jet fighter, we can do that later.
I) Banking can be liberalised like Switzerland, Bahamas model to facilitate inflow of capital but you can only achieve this with strong, clean ,healthy judiciary, the law must work or perceived to be working...Africa has an image problem , we have to clean it up fast..
Anything we do should always take into consideration how the ordinary Ghanaian benefits otherwise we are sleep walking into a failed state .of course we should increase tariff on items we can produce and reduce tariff on what we don’t e.g. cars, machinery are not luxuries, they are necessary tools to engage in pleasure and business importation of orange juice, soaps, tooth pick is crazy, we urgently have to raise tariff on these items..
E.g. all cars below 1.6litre should attract low duty, a flat duty of not more than $400 , our port will increase revenue with this flat rate system of taxation, transportation which is the biggest cost in Ghana in terms movement of goods ,people ,services will be now affordable like mobile phones, that way we set up for economic take off for the ordinary Ghanaians.
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