The breakdown and loss of our state owned enterprises

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• AKASI MARTHA ARIZONA USA 12 years ago

  WE SOLD ALL THE STATE OWNED ENRERPRISES, NOTHING LEFT MAY BE WE WANT TO SELL GHANA OK, RAWLINGSES WILL BUY.

  WE SOLD ALL THE STATE OWNED ENRERPRISES, NOTHING LEFT MAY BE WE WANT TO SELL GHANA OK, RAWLINGSES WILL BUY.

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• NPP Cocaine Pusher 12 years ago

  Osei Poku, you said it all and I thank you very much. But do you know the vision of those who overthrew Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the Founder of Ghana,and their local collaborators, the NPP? As for the others (apart from NPP) who cam ...
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  Osei Poku, you said it all and I thank you very much. But do you know the vision of those who overthrew Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the Founder of Ghana,and their local collaborators, the NPP? As for the others (apart from NPP) who came after Dr Nkrumah, they simply have been following the wind. Otherwise why should we continue to follow the IMF and the likes todate? The retrogressive vision of NPP and those who overthrew Nkrummah is; STEAL, LOOT, ACQUIRE PROPERTIES INCLUDING HOTELS,EXPLOIT THE MAJORITY FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR FAMILIES. But you know, the ROT has been on for so long that we need more articles like yours everyday to exorcise that evil vision.

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• Be Bold 12 years ago

  1. JJ NDC sold 99% of the state owned enterprises. NPP may have disagreed with KN but they did not sell Star Hotel, Ashanti Gold, killed GNTC, UTC, Kingsway, Firestone, Metro Mass, STC, Ambassador Hotel, Black Star line and o ...
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  1. JJ NDC sold 99% of the state owned enterprises. NPP may have disagreed with KN but they did not sell Star Hotel, Ashanti Gold, killed GNTC, UTC, Kingsway, Firestone, Metro Mass, STC, Ambassador Hotel, Black Star line and on and on. Ask yourself that under which gov did all this enterprise disappear? NDC. Mind you NDC has ruled Ghana for 25 years and still counting. Maybe you were born 8years ago then I will forgive your nativity.
  
  2. K4 got us out of IMF within 8yrs but NDC Mills took us back to the IMF so why can you blame your own visionless leaders? You call what NPP did to get Ghana out of the IMF
  retrogressive. You can't change history stupid fool.

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• Quarshie Agyeman-Sarpong. 12 years ago

  What enterprise has the Ghana state ever run profitably?.Exactly none.GAI went under and the other best run Ghanaian companies are all under foreign hands.We can't run our electric or water utilities properly without outages ...
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  What enterprise has the Ghana state ever run profitably?.Exactly none.GAI went under and the other best run Ghanaian companies are all under foreign hands.We can't run our electric or water utilities properly without outages or manage to keep our cities clean.I look at Ethiopian airlines & kenya airways and always wonder what is wrong with us in Ghana.

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• Mr. Oushuuuuu 12 years ago

  Have you heard of ADB?and many more.

  Have you heard of ADB?and many more.

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• EMMA 12 years ago

  LET SELL OUR PRESIDENCY FOR IT IS BETTER TO TREATED THIS WAY BY A CHINESE OR EUROPEANSIN MY OWN COUNTRY INSTEAD OF MY OWN BROTHER

  LET SELL OUR PRESIDENCY FOR IT IS BETTER TO TREATED THIS WAY BY A CHINESE OR EUROPEANSIN MY OWN COUNTRY INSTEAD OF MY OWN BROTHER

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• Yaw Ohemeng 12 years ago

  The writer has ignored the lessons that abound in history. All over the world no centrally planned economy, of the kind he longs for, has survived. The giants of socialism - China and the USSR, had to abandon that approach to ...
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  The writer has ignored the lessons that abound in history. All over the world no centrally planned economy, of the kind he longs for, has survived. The giants of socialism - China and the USSR, had to abandon that approach to make headway and to improve the lot of their people. That is why Ghana is now swamped by both Chinese nationals and goods. They never would have even been able to travel with their previous rigid model. Having adopted the market economy model has given free reign to Chinese inventions, innovations and enterprise.
  
  The SOEs that Nkrumah established were largely unprofitable because either the demand for the goods was not there amongst Ghanaians or management was very poor. A lot of these companies were managed by incompetent people who found their way there through party connections. They served at the pleasure of the President and were not tasked to perform.
  
  I therefore agreed wholeheartedly that they were all sold. They were weighing the nation down with massive subsidies pumped into them annually with no returns to the economy. Where I lament is that the proceeds from the sale were not re-invested in retooling the Ghanaian economy and re-skilling the Ghanaian.
  
  Our current problems as a nation is not because we do not have state owned enterprises to provide jobs. It is rather because Ghanaians do not cherish competence and expertise. We do not give competent people a chance if they are not prepared to submit to the political leaders. If we resolve as a nation to train and educate our people and to fund effective research and development in our institutions of learning, we can turn things around. We are rather pumping money into inconsequential projects and programmes to court momentary popularity.
  
  We lack the ability to project into the future and invest towards that. That is our main problem and I submit that adoption of socialism would even compound the problems.
  
  Socialists have this knack to ignore profit but lack of profits means lack of investment. The reason is that the nation has not got a limitless amount of money. Hence profit has to be generated to fund investments in every human endearvour. This a natural law that cannot be ignored.

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• Kwame 12 years ago

  Mr. Yaw Ohemeng I am not sure that a country with 70% of her youth on drugs would be said to have made socioeconomic progress because of market economy. I will also not agree with you that a country which youth sniff cow dung ...
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  Mr. Yaw Ohemeng I am not sure that a country with 70% of her youth on drugs would be said to have made socioeconomic progress because of market economy. I will also not agree with you that a country which youth sniff cow dung from the farms of their parents and go high has also made progress. I will also not agree with you that a country which had about 40% of its adult living abroad and that in some towns the inhabitants are children have made progress. 60% of the human resource of Poland for instance live and work in Western European countries and I can not imagine how you take that to be progress.
  At independence and already in 1965 Ghanaians were able to use state enterprises to grow the economy of Ghana. It is also a fact that in the 1930s when the U.S. had recession it has to nationalize some companies so that they could give employment to the citizen. The transport system in Japan, China and India which are developed economies are run by the state. In China which is the second highest economy today the majority of both production and distribution sectors are own and run by the state. Even in capitalist Britain transportation has not been fully privatized and broadcasting is still in the hand of the state.
  The issue is that monopolies that establish their outlets here take away their profit. They as well pay the expatriate employee better than his Ghanaian counterpart. Ghana is said to be the second producer of gold, but we get only 3% from the gold that is mined in the country and such agreement was fixed under the New Patriotic Party led by Mr. John Kufuor.
  All of Ghana owe 13% of our crude oil find and E.O. Group owe 3% which they put away in Cayman Islands. Which means that they did not invest it in Ghana. The man whose efforts established GNPC by which we owe 13% of our crude oil resources was imprisoned by Kufuor.
  A look at the political economy of this country and those who run it is that the issue is not that the state is unable to run those companies but that we prefer to play the second or even the third fiddle in our own country. Is it not the same managers who are running the state public and civil services and have they collapsed?
  This is what a Russian citizen wrote on the case of the so called western democracy and free economy: "The question will be put to the electorate that in order to have a society that is similar to what you believe is the case in liberal democracies of Western Europe and North America, your society will have to undergo a period whereby the majority of citizens will be plunged into economic poverty and financial hardship. A small minority will enjoy unprecedented wealth and privilege (because you can not represent your people when you are not rich). We don't know how long it will take for our citizens to emerge from crippling poverty. What do you prefer. Liberal Democracy that imposes a market economy that plunges the majority of citizens into poverty, or some economic security that restricts the operation of those people who advocate the unrestricted market economy as intrinsic part of liberal democracy. Those "honest brokers" who advocate liberal democracy for Eastern Europe need to first tell it how it is. All the nonsense about freedom is a foil for imprisoning people in poverty trap. Democracy is either about having a meaningful say in controlling economic process (the latter liberal democrats never entertain within their view of democracy) or it is meaningless ruse for a small minority of elite to get peoples' sight away from their democratic rights of which the most important is freedom from want".
  Whitewashing of imperialism and neocolonialism will not change its nature, it is still a blot on the conscience of mankind. At this stage in the development of human society and technology some countries and citizens live in wealth which they steal from other by all covert and overt means, including the use of arms and so called international organizations or 'international community", which are supposed to defend the sovereign rights of all nations to exist and coexist in peace. Their own 99% and citizens of developing countries and former socialist states live in abject poverty. We in Ghana have since 24/2/1966 plunged into debilitating and crippling poverty from which we are yet to emerge.
  In Mongolia cow dung has become an essential commodity that is sold to children to sniff and go high. Democracy and market economy has not created more jobs for Poles, Eastern Germans, Bulgarians, Russians, Armenians, Yugoslavs, Albanians and Georgians. Instead, the yellow revolutions just as the case of Ghana after 24/2/1966 transformed the nationals of those former socialist countries to cheap labour for western European countries, from the housemaid, nurse, cleaner, drug currier, prostitutes and human parts (as the case is with war prisoners in former Yugoslavia). We heard former President George Bush Jnr. saying that he was interested in the number of Cuban women he will sleep with if socialism is overthrown in Cuba. In 1967 "Drum" magazine published an article about a former female tractor operator and pilot on State Farms in the Farmers' Brigade, that was dismantled after the coup dancing in clubs in West Berlin and operating as call girls.

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• Yaw Ohemeng 12 years ago

  Kwame, I fail to get your point here. Do you call our state institutions as viable? If they are, how come Ghanaians are crying for energy and water?
  
  Our mining agreements were not signed under Kufuor. All the agreements pr ...
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  Kwame, I fail to get your point here. Do you call our state institutions as viable? If they are, how come Ghanaians are crying for energy and water?
  
  Our mining agreements were not signed under Kufuor. All the agreements predated him. I also do not think that if the EO group had not shown initiative, we would even be talking about an oil industry. I do not begrudge them that they made a profit.
  
  There are other oil explorations going on in Ghana now, how many of the companies are Ghanaian or even a state enterprise? Do you know how much the western companies sank into the offshore oil exploration? Who bore the risk of the capital that made the exploration possible? Do you also know that all that could have gone down the drain if no oil was struck? That is why capitalists take profits. You cannot sit down, risk no limb or capital and then lament that you have only 13% of oil proceeds. If we want to have 100% share, let us skill up our people, let us educate them, let us create the atmosphere in which business thrive and let us cherish competence and ability, and let us avoid corruption and our country will improve in leaps and bounds.
  
  I still maintain that without the incentive of profit, there cannot be enterprise. By the way the current government has a choice - explore natural resources on your own by financing them from your coffers and they can have 100% proceeds. That is simple. No investor will come on a charity adventure, risk their capital and then go back empty because they love Ghana.

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• Kojo T 12 years ago

  Nkrumaism is a pragmatic approach to economic development. It is the appilcation of the socialist and capitalist models to suit African conditions. At independence who owned the means of production in Ghana? There were few pe ...
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  Nkrumaism is a pragmatic approach to economic development. It is the appilcation of the socialist and capitalist models to suit African conditions. At independence who owned the means of production in Ghana? There were few people with entrepreneuralship and who had capital. To develop it was important the State intervened. But at NO time did Nkrumah resort to Nationalisation . That the enterprises Failed was due to 2 factors 1 The ma te me ho brainwashing that they were communist 2 Lack of time for the enterprises to become profitable. It takes 3-5 years for enterprises to begin to show profit. So lack of working capital stopped progress. But then as you said our mindset of looting state assets has been our biggest set back

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