Former Trade and Industry minister, Alan Kyerematen
The advent of media pluralism though good, also presents with it the challenge of dealing with the issues of fake news. It is very easy for anybody to say anything without being pinned down to provide evidence hence they get away with such negative propaganda.
Ordinarily, the story attributed to one Kevin Taylor with the headline “Alan Kyerematen lacks the intellectual capacity to become President” would not have been responded to for the obvious reason that it takes people with high degree of intellectual prowess to understand intellectual matters.
I dare say the person in question lacks that capacity. The decision to respond therefore is to educate the masses who probably may not be privy to the various achievements of the man Alan and also posterity since as they say “the internet never forgets”.
First of all, it is important to define what “Intellectual Capacity “is so we can narrow the whole debate to specifics. The phrase intellectual Capacity simply means “one’s ability to think, learn, plan, and execute with discipline”. What this means is that the story attributed to Kevin Taylor, wants to tell the world that Alan lacks the ability to think, learn, plan, and execute with discipline.
Is this a true and honest view anybody that is a Ghanaian or non-Ghanaian who has lived in or outside Ghana and for that matter very familiar with our governance and world politics can say about Alan?
Alan that is supposed to lack intellectual capacity started his secondary school education at Adisadel College in the central region at the age of nine (9) years. I am not too sure anybody who is not able to think will be able to achieve this feat of starting secondary school at that tender age.
He went through secondary education at that tender age with tact, discipline and ability to think and by dint of hardwork, came out with flying colours which enabled him to gain admission to Achimota for his A-Level education. Once again he was able to pass his A-Level not by bribing his way through but by hard work, dedication, honesty and above all his ability to think, learn, plan and execute.
He from Achimota entered the University of Ghana, Legon to read a program in Economics. Anybody that has had a stint with the course economics will know that it is not a course for people that lacks intellectual capacity. Once again he completed the University of Ghana, Legon with distinction and went ahead to even read law at the University of Ghana Law school to also become a lawyer.
Having finished his university education, his ability to think, learn, plan, and execute with discipline endeared him to the owners of UAC, a subsidiary of Unilever International where he was engaged as a senior corporate execute and was made to work in various managerial positions with distinction as far back as 1984.
I am sure Kevin Taylor remembers that in 1984, whiles Alan was managing a big portfolio as a corporate executive, his father whom I know very well was selling alcohol in a wooden structure that he termed a Pub and named it Gas-Light in Obuasi.
As his love for training entrepreneurs has always been known by those that are very close to him, it came as a little surprise to close friends when he decided to leave UAC to play the role of a Principal Consultant to consult for both private and public sector entities as the Head of Public Systems Management with the Management, Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI), a leading development institution in Ghana. I am not too sure a serious consultancy firm like the MDPI will ever engage someone who lacks intellectual capacity to be a senior consultant to advise on serious matters.
I have already said that this response is not to Kevin Taylor but for posterity and also millions who may not know the contribution of Alan Kyerematen towards the development of Ghana and the world at large be it in the private sector or the public sector. Right from the MDPI, he established Empretec which was a program financed by the UN and Barclays.UN and Barclays will never give a project to someone who lacks intellectual capacity to manage else Kevin Taylor would have been a beneficiary of it long ago.
It was as a result of his hardwork and intellectual prowess that the UN saw the need to finance the EMPRETEC project established by him which project trained a lot of entrepreneurs we have in this country including the owner of Kasapreko. Having excelled with the EMPRETEC Project, Alan was appointed by the UNDP as the first Regional Director of ENTERPRISE AFRICA, which was an Africa-wide initiative for the development and promotion of small and medium enterprises.
He being an intellectual powerhouse, used this opportunity to establish enterprise support institutions and programmes in 13 Sub-Saharan African countries including Botswana, Benin, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, etc. This engagement was in 1998 and fortunately or unfortunately the Npp won the election of 2000 which necessitated his moving from the private sector into the public sector.
In 2001, the President of Ghana, President John Agyekum Kufour appointed him as his Ambassador to the US.No serious president appoints people to the US as Ambassadors who lacks the Intellectual capacity to vindicate the President on his good choice of Ambassador to the US, he helped Ghana to take advantage of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which was a program by the US to encourage export from Africa especially Ghana into the US market which has never been taking advantage of.
I am sure Kevin Taylor would have done himself good by asking the various garment companies that sprang up in Ghana who were exporting into the US market. I am sure he, Kevin Taylor will not know because at the time Alan was doing all these, he was too young to appreciate.
His tenure as an Ambassador became so fruitful that he was able to aid the government in negotiating for the Millenium Challenge Account Compact of $500m which was used to construct the N1 road and also the GIMPA by-pass. Kevin Taylor may ask Sheik IC Quaye why he said the “money is big ooo”.
The government realising that Ghanaians were not taking advantage of the AGOA enough, was re-assigned to Ghana by President Kufuor as the Trades and Industry Minister in 2003 to promote more President Special Initiatives to stimulate export. This he came to do without a problem.
One can immediately remember the Ayensu Starch Factory which necessitated improved cassava farming which also went a long way to help multinational companies such as Nestle Ghana who used part of the cassava products for their cereal production as well as Guinness Ghana Limited who were using some of the ingredients from cassava to produce alcoholic beverages. If this person lacks intellectual capacity, then we need christ at the helm of affairs.
The idea of encouraging Ghanaians to wear Ghanaian print or what we call African wear was his brainchild. Ghanaians had abandoned the wearing of local print for foreign clothing thereby collapsing the local garment industry. This prompted the man that someone wants us to believe lacks the intellectual capacity to quickly come out with a programme to salvage the industry.
He launched Friday wear and decided since then to be wearing local print which has now become everyday wear thereby promoting our local garment industry which has helped saved companies such as the GTP, Akosombo Textiles, etc.
His ability to think, learn, plan and executive which Kevin Taylor calls Intellectual capacity led him to initiate, direct and manage the preparation for the hosting of UNCTAD XII in Ghana and also introduce for the first time in history of UNCTAD conferences, the World Investment Forum which has now become a major calendar event for UNCTAD.
As a trade and industry minister, he helped shaped most of Africa’s Policy on trade. The NPP left power in 2009 and he did not cease to help the African continent in the area of trade and industry policy formulation. He became the UN representative to the AU on Trade matters and was no wonder at a point, he was a front runner who became the WTO boss.
As a policy expert in AU, he fought for the removal of trade barriers within the African continent by developing various policy frameworks for the AU and when the NPP won power and he was made the minister of Trade in 2017, he immediately kicked into motion the idea of actualising the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) which became a reality and with a dint of hardwork got its secretariat to be sited in Ghana.
Any time anyone passes through the Ridge area of Accra and sees the Secretariat of AFCFTA, that person must remember the name Alan and am not sure any person that lacks any intellectual capacity can achieve that feat.
One of the problems faced by the country Ghana is the mounting task of dealing with unemployment. Alan as the trade minister implemented the 1D1F program successfully and as we speak has enabled the construction of 296 factories throughout the country providing jobs to more than two hundred thousand Ghanaians.
In addition to this 1D1F, the country Ghana imports a lot of automobiles and their parts annually which is one of the reasons we always have a depreciating currency. To effectively deal with this problem, Alan assuming office as the trade and industry minister, formulated what is known as the Automotive Development Plan.
This plan alone has lured six leading automobile companies ie Toyota, VW, Nissan, KIA, Peugeot, Sinotruck, etc into Ghana. These companies are currently assembling vehicles in Ghana and as of now have all been able to assemble 4,700 vehicles for export. The idea is to manufacture the vehicles and their parts in Ghana and not assemble and that is what the long-term view is.
To lack Intellectual capacity is to sit and not bring anything on board for national development.
Readers must note that under his watch and through his single-handed initiative,67 Business Resource centers have been constructed across the length and breadth of this country with the aim of helping SMEs to perfect their business operations to take advantage of the 3 trillion markets that Africa Continental Free Trade Area offers. He has also made it a policy to develop industrial parks to stimulate production in Ghana and provided a policy framework for the development of Strategic Anchor Industries.
In conclusion, I would be happy to see the Intellectual capacity of the candidate Kevin Taylor supports “John Mahama” so that we can do a good debate. We know how uncomfortable the NDC is with Alan coming because apart from his sterling performance in his career both in public and private life, it is also very difficult to tag him with any corruption-related issues. I am all ears to hear the intellectual capacity of John Mahama from Kevin Taylor.
