Resolving Ghana’s economic challenges
Resolving Ghana’s economic problems in the short, medium and long term calls for different baskets of solution variables.
In the short term, the depreciation of the Ghana cedi is an indication that there is a significant shortfall in the availability of United States dollars (USD), vis a vis the demand for dollars for purposes of imports, educational fees, interest on loans, etc.
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The solution variable available to the government in the short term is to reduce the demand for USD to match the supply or availability of USD in the country.
Simply put, we must prioritise our foreign expenditure, through the issuance of import licence or increased tariffs, so as to discourage importation of goods as a temporary solution to the problem.
Medium term
As a country, we must earn or increase the supply of the USD, by increasing our earning capacity of the USD.
We can do this by increasing our cocoa, gold and crude oil volumes, to earn more USD, while keeping local demand of USD still low.
We must also improve our services sector by marketing our tourism potential, so as to increase the supply of USD in the sector through patrons of the various sites in the country.
Further, we must increase the trade volumes of our non-traditional exports and make a conscious effort to increase the processing of all our exports for fair market prices for our exports.
Long term
Industrialisation is key to our earning more USD in the international markets but the engine for industrialisation is energy. Our current energy mix is as good as supplying power to our homes and a few industrial sectors. We, therefore, need to generate excess reliable power for all sectors.
In this modern world, cheap reliable energy means nuclear energy.
As a result, there is the need for a nuclear programme. It may involve initial capital outlay, with the partnership of strategic investors to provide the needed funding or the seeking of long-term funding from international financial institutions such as the Bretton-Woods institutions.
The key element in a nuclear programme is uranium, which can easily be sourced from neighbouring Niger.
The current world thrives on the computer micro-chip and semi-conductors. Agro-processing is the basic step of industrialisation.
The key ingredient in the production of the computer micro-chip and semi- conductors is cobalt, which can easily be sourced cheaply from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Until we shift our focus from selling cocoa, gold (in their raw state), fruits and fruit juice and foodstuffs and nuts, we will not be going very far in the scheme of things in the global economy.
We must improve the quality of our export basket and find ways of controlling our insatiable desire for imported foreign goods.
These are but a few of my thoughts on Ghana’s economic survival in the global economy.
The writer is a Legal Practitioner. E-mail: [email protected]