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• Mahmoud 11 years ago

  The so-called professor that tried to embellish Nkrumah's economic record needs to go to School again. These types of socialist arguments could deceive Ghanaians in the 50s and 60s, but they cannot do so now. Nkrumah was the ...
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  The so-called professor that tried to embellish Nkrumah's economic record needs to go to School again. These types of socialist arguments could deceive Ghanaians in the 50s and 60s, but they cannot do so now. Nkrumah was the first leader to introduce unsustainable debt into this nation by borrowing massively and unnecessarily to finance his whims and caprices to cling to power. It was a misfortune that we had such a person as president immediately after the independence. He didn't lay a realistic economic foundation for sustainable development of the young nation, considering the amount of money that was at his disposal in those days.
  
  Ghana had about one billion dollars in reserve when Nkrumah took over the reins of government from the colonial master. Could you imagine what the value of 1bn dollars was in the early fifties? Again, after 2years of his rule, cocoa prices at the world market rocketed and increased four-fold. But contrary to any sound economic planning, he did not reserve any fraction of the windfall for a rainy day, as the Whiteman had done with only one fourth of the revenues he got from cocoa. So, what did Nkrumah do with all the revenues he got from the astronomical cocoa prices, and the big reserve he inherited that took many years to build for our financial stability and sustainable development?
  
  The man just went on a spending spree both in Ghana and around the world, throwing his weight about and talking big. So when the cocoa prices fell close to the end of his rule, he was quick to point accusing fingers at the West, blaming them for manipulating cocoa prices to sabotage the economy of Ghana and overthrow his government. Finally, after misusing all the money mainly on useless prestigious projects, failed communist agricultural projects and whimsical mad rush industrialization projects, that did not withstand the test of time, he also burdened the young nation with another billion dollars' debt before he was forced out of this country.
  
  The truth is that, Kwame Nkrumah met a rich and confident country with stable economy, and left it nearly bankrupt in some few years as a result of gross mismanagement.

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• Mahmoud 11 years ago

  Strong partisanship started in Ghana when Kwame Nkrumah divided the nation into patriots and traitors. Patriots were those who accepted that he should be president for life, practice communism and one party state, and indulge ...
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  Strong partisanship started in Ghana when Kwame Nkrumah divided the nation into patriots and traitors. Patriots were those who accepted that he should be president for life, practice communism and one party state, and indulge in Leftist anti-Western propaganda using the small country's meager resources to challenge centuries' old, well-established countries. They even accepted that he should act as a savior of the Blackman around the world, while tyrannizing his own Black people at home because they have alternative views for the development of their country.
  
  Those who wanted him to concentrate on the needs of the young nation and tone down his rhetoric against the powerful were called traitors, reactionaries, and agents of imperialism that should be liquidated and imprisoned dead or alive. Could you believe that the opposition members he was tyrannizing were the very people who started the struggle for our independence? They employed Nkrumah and paid for his ticket from the UK to come and work as General Secretary of the group, saving him from the tyranny of his joblessness in London. The independence struggle Vanguards were senior civil servants in the Gold Coast. And as the struggle was gaining momentum and the scope of their activities were widening, they needed someone to work full time for the group; free from official work constrains to further spread message of the struggle.
  
  Under their responsibility and protection, Nkrumah used the platform to become the public face of the group and his popularity soared. In those days, many perceive him as the person or the only person fighting for our independence and not a spokesperson of the group. Subsequently, when he heard from the Governor General's female secretary, who was later sacked, that the British were preparing to grant us independence, and he increasingly used needless militant tactics to provoke the Whiteman in order to embarrass leadership of the struggle and outsmart them. He then used the opportunity to break away from them, forming his own party and slapping them from behind to take power.
  
  This explains the strong partisanship in the country and why Nkrumah didn't want the Liberation Vanguards to ever come to power in his life time. Maybe, he was afraid of his own ghost. And despite all these facts, his supporters still want us to believe that he initiated, spearheaded and single handedly fought for our independence, and therefore name every national project after him as if we were in a kingdom.

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• AT 11 years ago

  Which professor are you referring to? Does it have anything to do with this article?

  Which professor are you referring to? Does it have anything to do with this article?

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• pa chris 11 years ago

  all we need is leader of vision where and how they see our mother land in 10 years this have been the plans all the so called develop country

  all we need is leader of vision where and how they see our mother land in 10 years this have been the plans all the so called develop country

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 11 years ago

  This Mahmoud bloke is such an ignorant, lying fool! I really don't understand why his type think they can continue fabricating lies in the face of recorded historical facts.
  
  When the West Africa Produce Board was dissolved ...
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  This Mahmoud bloke is such an ignorant, lying fool! I really don't understand why his type think they can continue fabricating lies in the face of recorded historical facts.
  
  When the West Africa Produce Board was dissolved to pave way for the formation of the GCMB, Ghana got the "lion's share" of its reserves, a mere £19m! Nigeria got even less than Ghana, about £9m.
  
  The so-called reserves left to Nkrumah upon attainment of indep. was INDEED accumulated by the CPP regime during the period of the dyarchy, thanks to the infamous advice of Sir Arthur Lewis to keep the windfall from the cocoa and other produce boom associated with the Korean War which ended in 1954. It introduced the phrase "anchor of safety" into the Ghanaian political parlance/lexicon which all educated grown-ups knew about in the 1950s, just as we today know of "gargantuan" in a particular sense. More importantly, the advice not to increase cocoa prices appreciably to stem inflation while diseased trees were being cut led to the formation of the NLM. All this is part of our recorded, recent history and could be found in books.
  
  What Nkrumah accumulated was just above £200m, and nowhere near half a billion dollars. In fact,the money wasn't enough to pay for the Akosombo Dam, not to mention the Tema Harbour and Township, which are still there today. Can someone value those assets alone to see whether Nkrumah wasted our resources? Then go and value all the other factories divested since the '60s and still being sold. And all those that were abandoned thereby causing huge financial losses to the state. The gold refinery was 95% completed when it was abandoned, and up to today, we don't have one! The myriads of educational institutions, health facilities, roads, etc., built with the loans taken. Can any successive show us assets consumerate with the loans they had taken? Btw, within the few years of the NLC and PP combined, Ghana took more loans than the CPP from 1953 to 1966! Have they left us something to sell off now?
  
  Nkrumah did everything that he was told by his foreign advisers up to 1960. Yes, we have to understand that even one party of our colonisers claimed socialism as their ideology and were nationalising industries after the WWII. In fact, the Conservative govt nationalised the steel industry (included coal) during the war and Roosevelt also tried but failed. The main book we used in Pol. Science theory in the 1970s, Politics and Government by Karl Deutsch, among countless other books and studies, clearly stated that state intervention in the economy led to faster development. The corporatist state was born and spearheaded the advancement of the Scandinavian countries, for example.
  
  By the mid-80s, books were being published showing the dominant roles the state was playing in the devt of the Asian Tigers. Only ignorant and gullible Africans haven't read those books, and continue to believe that the private sector is the "engine of growth", cos the intellectually bankrupt dead brains have been brainwashed to believe that a god created the universe in 6 days and took a rest on the 7th! Meanwhile, they are criminally minded like a pack of thieves! How can such people develop a country?
  
  Andy-K

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Efo Yao,
  
  I have read a couple or so of this Mahmoud.
  
  However, I have not bordered to respond to any of them because I do not know where to start.
  
  The problem is, Andy, that I have too many facts to lay bare before ...
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  Efo Yao,
  
  I have read a couple or so of this Mahmoud.
  
  However, I have not bordered to respond to any of them because I do not know where to start.
  
  The problem is, Andy, that I have too many facts to lay bare before this fraudster that, like I said before, I the issue of not knowing where exactly to start has prevented me from dealing with his ignorance.
  
  99.99% of what he says about Nkrumah has no basis in historical facts. I think he is playing one of those childish, mischievous pranks ADJOA WANGARA and GIRLS SP play on Ghanaweb.
  
  I am not too certain whether Mahmoud, ADJOA WANGARA, and GIRSL SP want to be taken serious. But I hope Mahmoud learns something useful from you. These guys will hear from us at the appropriate time.
  
  Thanks, Efo Yao.

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 11 years ago

  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  You are absolutely right, one doesn't really know where to start and end!
  
  After writing, I've been contemplating returning to TheNkrumaistforum to champion the continuation of what we started years back: w ...
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  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  You are absolutely right, one doesn't really know where to start and end!
  
  After writing, I've been contemplating returning to TheNkrumaistforum to champion the continuation of what we started years back: writing articles and subsequently a book to expose their lies. Exposing their lies requires more than a casual effort or the sporadic efforts some of us make on the Internet. It wasn't the first time I had written to challenge distortions like the ones this "Mahmoud" is pandering about but them someone else comes to repeat them. With a book exposing them freely available in Ghana, they'd think twice before engaging in their calumnious lies and distortions.
  
  I don't think he is from the North, or I'd have asked him to give us a valuation of the free education policy of the CPP there from 1952 to Feb.1966. By the time of the coup, it was compulsory and free in the South too. In the town of Anloga, I only knew one young boy who was playing truant and the big boys, including his senior brother, were often sent to capture and bring him to school. With a single mother, they were indeed very poor and had to fend for themselves by hook or crook. Today, thousands of young boys and girls are not going to school and Mugabe is mocking us very aptly! He made my day!
  
  As for what Apisco or Dicky Duck has written, I wish I have time to tell him and others what is being done to Ghana by the wannabe "leaders" since Nkrumah.
  
  Andy-K

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Nyebro Yao,
  
  Thanks for your thoughtful rejoinder.
  
  I think your proposition about writing a book exposing the fabications about Nkrumah and posting them free on Ghanaweb (and other portals) is not a bad idea at all.
  
  ...
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  Nyebro Yao,
  
  Thanks for your thoughtful rejoinder.
  
  I think your proposition about writing a book exposing the fabications about Nkrumah and posting them free on Ghanaweb (and other portals) is not a bad idea at all.
  
  It is an idea we all should take up. And like you said, I have many of your corrective rejoinders and yet they keep popping up.
  
  They won't win. They shall be hearing from us from time to time with more force. As for the book idea, I shall take it up with others and get back to you. A profound suggestion, Brother Andy.
  
  Thanks for your great wisdom. You have been extremely resourceful to many of us.
  
  God bless you!

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• nana kwame 11 years ago

  I know you are very matured enough. dare not doubt my father's integrity.your choice of words are very disturbing. that is why I always challenge all the universities to introduce one of the ginres of linguistics. called sty ...
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  I know you are very matured enough. dare not doubt my father's integrity.your choice of words are very disturbing. that is why I always challenge all the universities to introduce one of the ginres of linguistics. called stylistics in every department for some people to. learn sense and how to talk in. both print and electronic media.To me these of your thoughts and comments are sophomoric and infantile. None of ur family members can stand before him both book knowledge and domestic wisdom. bam

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• G.A.Freduah-Agyemang. 11 years ago

  We are destroying the nation. When the quest for power is because of jealousy, envy, greed and selfishness and parochial tribal/ ethnic exploitation without regard for the welfare of the citizens, impoverishment, degradation, ...
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  We are destroying the nation. When the quest for power is because of jealousy, envy, greed and selfishness and parochial tribal/ ethnic exploitation without regard for the welfare of the citizens, impoverishment, degradation, lack of education, health, road, accommodation infrastructure and breakdown of rule of law are the legacies bequeathed to the citizenry. Even leadership insultingly forces followership to see improvement in their living conditions, as if they lack any human sense of their own.
  Dr. Appeadu, no party in government in Ghana will welcome your idea that capable, selfless Ghanaians irrespective of party affiliation be assembled to help move the nation on sustainable growth, BECAUSE the patronage system does not. allow for good governance. So long as Ghanaians appear to be satisfied with feeding from the crumbs that fall from the table of the nouveaux riches and upstarts without seriously questioning the source of the ill gotten wealth, I am afraid, the wallowing in abject poverty continues needlessly.ONLY Ghanaians can save themselves from the leeches of leaders.

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• A Kojo T 11 years ago

  The truth about Ghana's deterioration is sad in deed. Most of our leaders have not been with foresight and have become too corrupt. They just steal nakedly from the coffers. A currently serving deputy minister (less than two ...
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  The truth about Ghana's deterioration is sad in deed. Most of our leaders have not been with foresight and have become too corrupt. They just steal nakedly from the coffers. A currently serving deputy minister (less than two years in this position) who spent sometime in Europe (HH) and struggled to make ends meet has now acquired four huge houses in prime locations in Accra. Obviously his admirers would want to enter politics too. The president himself is cited as an accomplice in shady deals against the nation. It is obvious that our progress as a nation will be in the wrong direction. Mind you, there are people paid by the govt to sit by computers to distort any truth about the corruption they are engaged in. What a mess.

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• nana kwame 11 years ago

  Dr Appeadu, well done. you have said it all. now corruption is rulling the nation of ours. The one whom you are to report the incident of corruption to is also corrupt.Afroberometric did indicate that corruption is of high in ...
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  Dr Appeadu, well done. you have said it all. now corruption is rulling the nation of ours. The one whom you are to report the incident of corruption to is also corrupt.Afroberometric did indicate that corruption is of high increased in ghana. Ges tops all base upon my own investigations. my question has remained unanswered. who is to punish corruption? kudo to you daddy.

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• Zirbure 11 years ago

  well said Dr., Ghana needs selfless leaders to push our developmental agenda forward. we're spending too much on our political leaders (prez. with uncountable staffers, MPs, M/DCEs e.t.c)

  well said Dr., Ghana needs selfless leaders to push our developmental agenda forward. we're spending too much on our political leaders (prez. with uncountable staffers, MPs, M/DCEs e.t.c)

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• Kofi Ata, Cambridge, UK 11 years ago

  Good morning Apisco and thanks for a refreshing piece. However, I was confused about the per capita GDP figure of $1,838 from the Ghana Statistical Service. I sent Ghanaweb a copy of article in response to Robert Mugabe's ins ...
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  Good morning Apisco and thanks for a refreshing piece. However, I was confused about the per capita GDP figure of $1,838 from the Ghana Statistical Service. I sent Ghanaweb a copy of article in response to Robert Mugabe's insult on Monday night and gave Ghana's per capita GDP as $3,500 as at 2013 quoted from CIA's Country Report on Ghana. How come CIA got it so wrong?
  
  I had a similar discussion with Kwaku Azar (we are class mates at Augusco, though you did Science) on the same issues you raised in the article. The problem is that Ghana does not lack the human capacity or technical expertise to do some of the simple policy solutions you mentioned at home. However, indiscipline, corruption, near lawlessness and partisan politics are some of the causes of the stagnant economic development. The fact is that without addressing these problems Ghanaian experts in the Diaspora will have no meaningful impact if they return home with their knowledge and experience. They would be frustrated till either they also become part of the problem or leave in disappointment.
  
  Azar shared his experience giving a management lecture as a visiting Professor to students at a public management university in Accra with students of senior management of public and private institutions. On his first day, two-thirds of the class were late. He warned them that he does not accept lateness at lectures and that he expects everyone to be present and not disturb his lectures by coming late. The second day, the class was half full or half empty. He locked the door and did not allow those late to come in. The third and subsequent days the class were full. Strangely, the resident lecturers told him that he could do lock the door because he is based in the US and that if they did that, some of the students will use their positions to report them and they could even lose their jobs (since some of the students are big men/women in society.
  
  That is exactly what you have described. These men with cars and drivers yet they cannot attend lectures on time and had to be locked out before doing so. Why can't the academic institution itself have such a policy about lateness? Does it have to be a policy of someone from the US? It's sad but the Ghanaian attitude is part of the problem.

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• Charles Appeadu 11 years ago

  Kofi, the $3500 figure is the GDP based on purchasing power parity. The $1838 figure is the actual raw figure. I hope this clarifies any confusion.

  Kofi, the $3500 figure is the GDP based on purchasing power parity. The $1838 figure is the actual raw figure. I hope this clarifies any confusion.

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• Kofi 11 years ago

  Ghana"s GDP per head in 1957 was not $400.Can you share your source of info on this? thanks.

  Ghana"s GDP per head in 1957 was not $400.Can you share your source of info on this? thanks.

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• Says Who 11 years ago

  Kofi, I am sure you know how to solve equations. This is a simple mathematical expression. The Doc gave you the constant in the equation which he stated as being equal to twelve as a percentage. Therefore if you know the GDP ...
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  Kofi, I am sure you know how to solve equations. This is a simple mathematical expression. The Doc gave you the constant in the equation which he stated as being equal to twelve as a percentage. Therefore if you know the GDP for 1957, all you have to do is find twelve percent of that figure, subtract that from the original figure and you will arrive at the current GDP.
  
  If I understand the Doc correctly, the relative value is what was quoted in relation to the current GDP. So if the value of the GDP in 1957 would have been just enough to get a phone, then at current values that will not be possible because it is twelve percent short of the value of a phone.
  
  To be able to compare the two values [not amounts], you have to keep an eye on the constant otherwise the equation will be wrong.

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• Kofi 11 years ago

  Ghana: Selected Macroeconomics Indicators
  Sources: World Development Indicators, World Bank and International Financial Statistics, IMF
  1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009
  Real GDP (US$ mn) 1,900 2,213 2 ...
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  Ghana: Selected Macroeconomics Indicators
  Sources: World Development Indicators, World Bank and International Financial Statistics, IMF
  1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009
  Real GDP (US$ mn) 1,900 2,213 2,550 2,518 2,640 2,584 3,267 4,029 4,977 6,364 7,949
  Real GDP growth (%) – 1.4 9.7 -12.4 0.5 5.1 3.3 4.1 3.7 5.9 3.5
  GDP per capita (US$) 280 282 292 252 239 199 218 234 255 290 333.

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• Kofi Ata, Cambridge, UK 11 years ago

  Thanks, Apisco and regards.

  Thanks, Apisco and regards.

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• together as one 11 years ago

  the long grammar will not solve any problem we need to act as u are saying is our universities free from corruption and what are the professor doing we take research allowance and don't don't do research and indiscipline ever ...
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  the long grammar will not solve any problem we need to act as u are saying is our universities free from corruption and what are the professor doing we take research allowance and don't don't do research and indiscipline every where we cry for job and when we get it we do things any how n destroy government properties and blame government forgetting that u and I makes government if we don't change our attitude and become responsible we can never be a free corrupt country

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• Rev. Alex Boamah 11 years ago

  I think almost all Ghanians of accountable age knows what the problems are. The truth is that I believe cronyism and nepotism will continue to ride high unless we all do something about it! The Bible says " the fear of God is ...
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  I think almost all Ghanians of accountable age knows what the problems are. The truth is that I believe cronyism and nepotism will continue to ride high unless we all do something about it! The Bible says " the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom". We go to church or whatever we believe in, and yet we fail to put into practice what we learn from there. Most of our leaders have lived in developed countries, seen how things are done, observed how governments operate and how agriculture and industry is booming.
  It's sad to see people with all kinds of academic degrees come back and become corrupt and participate in " business as usual". Only a small fraction of the elite are concerned about the total welfare of the country and the citizens!
  Well said, my friend! People put in power and high positions must wake up from their slumber and put God first in their lives, family and nation following in that order. If we stop putting family first, we can make our country Ghana a better and a model nation in Africa!
  God is still watching!

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