The answer (to economic decline and underdevelopment) is to change the structure of the economy. All the development problems we have had in this country are due to the fact that we depend on two commodities, cocoa and gold  (and 'aid', Ed.), for survival; so, when the prices of the commodities collapse, we are in trouble.

It does not matter how much money the IMF, World Bank or the donor community give to us, unless the economy structurally moves away from its commodity dependency to value-added production and services, we can forget it, because cocoa and its products are luxury products. A lot of people cannot afford to spend money on chocolate, which is not essential; everybody is becoming weary of their health and will therefore not risk it for chocolate and the usual additives.

We need to think ahead, because a sustainable and durable development is only going to be possible in this country if we move the country away from its commodity dependency to a high-value added and services oriented economy. And we need to build the right capabilities and that will mean investing in IT infrastructure and in telecommunications and not only in roads, transport, ports and harbours. We have to make sure that the conductivity with 'Ghana' from outside in terms of high frequency telephones and airlines are sorted out. It has to be at the core of the development strategy.

It is very worrisome when the IMF and World Bank talk about poverty alleviation as if it is an end in itself. In fact such initiatives are good but poverty is caused, it is not inherited; people do not just become poor. We suffered 100% devaluation of our currency last year, but wages have not been increased to that level and this has made people even poorer than last year. You can only change that if this economy becomes sustainable. Even as individual human beings, if we do not have sustainable incomes, we cannot plan our individual lives, let alone a whole nation – so yes, we have to move to value-added strategy; i.e., we have to add more value to our commodities. It is only when governments and people really begin to think along these lines that poverty becomes a meaningful issue i.e. fighting poverty through the creation of a durable and sustainable economy.

For instance, if the government decides to put up a health post based on ' aid', it can do so easily, but it is then left with the question of maintaining it. Two years down the road such a facility has no doctor, the beds are broken down, and the bulbs are blown out due to lack of maintenance because there are no funds to maintain the facility and because donor 'support' would have dried up. We need to seriously sort out the issue of the structure of the economy before we begin to think about other things.

Update 16-02-05 : Story by Matilda Asante

 The national tripartite committee, which fixes the country’s daily minimum wage, is to meet as part of initial deliberations to agree on an acceptable wage for 2005.

This is the second in a series of scheduled meetings ahead of the announcement of a new minimum wage.

The tripartite committee comprises organized labour led by the Trades Union Congress, the Ghana Employers Associations and the Finance and Employment ministries representing government.

For the past three days members of the committee have been holding discussions with stakeholders in the transport sector on government’s proposed 50 per cent hike in petroleum prices.

This is because the impending petroleum price increases will be one of the major factors to be considered in deciding on the daily minimum wage.

Quizzed on how the labour movement was reacting to the impending price hikes the TUC General Secretary Kwasi Adu Amankwaa, said “when prices of food and transportation go up there are many other commodities which may be directly affected because people who depend on transportation and on food will find it necessary to raise their prices to enable them cope. This is what accounts for the spiral of petroleum price increase effects…

Update 16-02-05 : Based on a story from Ghanaweb

In a classic piece of imagineering of the kind that has already kept Thatcher apprentice the warmonger and stooge of crony capitalism T. Blair in office for two contiguous terms, "Britain has announced plans to pay 10 per cent of Ghana's multilateral debt" *between now and 2015* (that means less than 1% per annum which is less than the interest charged on debt), "as London "forged ahead with an ambitious bid to tackle African poverty", said a British statement".

"Following a Group of Seven (G7) agreement (not followed up by action) early this month for a proposed 100 per cent debt relief to the world's poorest countries, Britain swiftly announced it was taking immediate" (misleadingly reported, paltry) "action on debts owed to it by 19 developing countries, including Ghana". The Statement and 'news' reports fail to mention that the amounts involved are less than the interest charged a tiny fraction of the profits reaped annually by the former colonial power, by tentacles of neo-colonialism, from said "developing countries".

"Britain wants the world's richest donor countries to take over *a proportion* (enough to spin misleading propaganda about) of developing nations' debt owed to them through the World Bank and African Development Bank and *service it* (as distinct from waiving or collecting it from the foreign bank accounts that it fattened) themselves". The 'news' release doesn't go on to explain that to do so is far more profitable than to risk losing ability to suck the blood of the people of fed up former colonies.

"Britain has pledged to pay 10 per cent of the total of this debt by 2015, on behalf of countries with good governance and established poverty reduction strategies." That's code for countries who won't rock the boat by evicting the World Bank and all of its proteges.

The G7 nations, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, have expressed readiness to provide 100 per cent debt relief for the world's poorest nations. Believe it when you see it and beware the developmentally subversive strings attached. "Poorest nation" status is not an act of God - it's an outcome of misgovernment by unscrupulous quislings of exploitative external forces.

Don't take my word for it - read it between the lines of statements from people like the CEO of Unilever Ghana.

Update 17-02-2005 : Greenspan testifying live to powerful US committee (broadcast via CNBC), is warning of the outcomes of failing to close the 'divide' between haves and have nots - it's dressed up in chatter about 'democracy' and so on, but it's really a warning that if you don't stop hogging the wealth, then we the people, will call on you in the middle of the night and take it 'all' away.

Oh, and about many times more cost-effective use of money than is done by 'aid' systems, in terms of the well-being of the people, as distinct from propping up the developmentally pernicious influence of privileged minorities and proteges of neo-colonial forces. 'Aid' is designed to create/perpetuate acquired aid dependence syndrome in accordance with the real agenda of the  World Bank and other subversive forces of crony capitalism,

MIT's Nicholas Negroponte and Geekcorps (each standing on the shoulders of the other) seem to be treading the right path - or one of them anyway...... there remains the small matter of how to enable (or simply not obstruct in the traditional manner of all things related to the World Bank et al) payment in the land of less than a dollar a day minimum wages, in local produce (rendered unsaleable by dumped agribusiness and other forms of waste from US and EU) and talent, for Negroponte's $99 portable pc and its netlink. So far only SoACT has even tried to tackle that one (that's why - because seen as a threat to the 'aid' industry - the unit and students were locked out of Legon and why it has been (and apparently still is according to ongoing action research) so difficult to produce results intended  by the carte blanche given by inspired Nana Boakye Dankuah 1 when Principal of Kumasi Polytechnic. One thing is certain, that an unrestrained 'aid' industry will promote no more or less than more of the same, namely the equipping of a small privileged class of the 'deserving', by deeply embedded patronage systems.

Question : how many new ways of doing legal micro business independent of 'aid' and dysfunctional government, have been illustrated here since this 2005 action research cycle started? Answer is three :

1. Suggested by front page content - get a credit card as a business investment and sell a domain name registration/management service in local currency to the vast majority of the population who trade in cash only and usually in local currency;

2. Straightforward trading, but not local petty trading of the Kejetia kind (at the end of a long line of profiteers between the producer of your product and you). Instead, internet mediated petty (unless you're rich) trading in global markets, of the main Asante natural resources;

3. Relatively *very* inexpensive provision of non geographical location dependent (as long as you have net access) advisory/consultancy service(s), the efficacy of which despite very low overhead cost is being demonstrated, that finance houses pay millions for annually (see the TT club). Appropriately trained people equipped with little capital and with a basic inexpensive 'aid' free toolkit, can develop and use entirely new 'aid' free skills and become economically active independently of and over the heads of those responsible for the persistently dreadful local and regional economic climate.

3.1. Action research is showing that apart from the net connection and terminal, and a couple of hundred US dollars (minimum) trading account balance (effectively amplified by CFD leverage and freed by CFD trading from transaction commissions) *everything* else (meaning information flows and processing software) is free because financed by advertising.

3.2. In this paper, the author tells about an aspect of brain development - another well researched one is the quantified difference between a 'normal' brain and the brain of a London cab driver after years of 'doing the knowledge' (intensive focussed training). In other words, with training, the average human brain and innate adaptability that we are all born with, can develop to effectively interpret numerous almost chaotic to the untrained, simultaneous real-time signals generated by varying trade-related phenomena and semi-processed by computing technology. Big finance houses have known that and exploited it for a long time. Another thing they know and exploit with their vast resources, is that that ability can be seriously enhanced by application of additional computing technology that can 'scan' and calculate at far greater speed and with far greater capacity than the human brain. Now because of recent progress, you can inexpensively do it too and we'll go into detail in a later paper.

4. Informal mining is not included, because that would bring you into direct conflict with powerful crony capitalist forces, their quislings, and laws/customs designed or misused to protect both from the people - nor is it suggested that you should sell Anglogold Ashanti short (we'll come back to short selling as a legitimate topic/skill later) and then engineer a catastrophe that causes the share prices of AAUK/AU/GSS et al to plummet - that's what those behind "9-11" did with airline shares but at best it's seriously sociopathic behaviour, characteristic of the 'jolly good chap' brigades of 'aid' beneficiaries, but not to be recommended among citizens with a social conscience. It is worth bearing in mind that the cause of poverty in the midst of plenty is dysfunctional government. Even if foreign 'owners' of the people's minerals and other natural resources were appropriately taxed and regulated, the tax would disappear into foreign bank accounts via the black hole of misgovernment. Emmanuel Akli, in Tarkwa reported 12-08-2004 in The Ghanian Chronicle that since the Anglogold Ashanti Iduaprime mine was established, the company had paid total royalties of $17.7 million to that date to the government, but that the people among whom the miners operate, continue to live in poverty without anything remotely resembling decent education and health services.

To be Contd.