From a Primary Economy to a Secondary Economy

Most of the problems debilitating against Ghana are very basic. And to confront these problems, a new and firm leadership response is required. By “a new leadership response,” I don’t mean a change in the country’s leadership. It means new thinking, unconventional ways of doing things, and a forthright policy, political, and innovative thinking! 

A visionary leadership should be able to move Ghana from a developing country to a mid-developed country in 8 years. By mid-developed, I mean, a country which is in-between a developing country and a developed country. This is how it should be done: use the first four years of the government to tackle the basic problems by:

1. Overhauling the entire education system. Fix every infrastructural problem in the education sector, from the basic to the tertiary level. And fix all other educational problems. Simply put, create an internationally acceptable educational system.

2. Tackling all other infrastructural problems. Fix every single road. Upgrade every single highway and build new ones, build pedestrian walkways to ensure pedestrian safety. Upgrade airports, and build new ones IF NECESSARY. Solve the energy problems. Address water and sewage systems problems. End legacy pollution in all forms. Tackle sanitation problems. Deal with communication/broadband problems. Improve public transportation.

3. Dealing with the problems in the health sector. Build more hospitals and clinics, and upgrade old hospitals and clinics to acceptable standards. Furnish the facilities with everything that is needed to provide acceptable healthcare delivery. And solve 85% of all healthcare related problems if you can’t solve 100% of the problems.

4. Liberalizing legal education and addressing the legal problems in the country. End the monopoly of the Ghana School of Law in the training of lawyers in the country. Give accreditation to more universities to train lawyers. Pass enforceable laws and enforce them to make sure no one is above the law. Pass laws that require judges to dispose of cases in a timely manner. Reform both the civil and criminal  justice systems.

Time will not allow me to mention every single basic problem that requires fixing. We all know the basic problems confronting the nation. And if these problems are fixed within 4 years ( which can be done), it will lay the foundation on which industrialization, high technological innovations, robust scientific innovations, etc. can be built. 

For instance, there cannot be any proper industrialization with intermittent power supply. The agricultural sector would not thrive with poor road network and railway infrastructure. Scientific research and high technological innovations cannot be sustained without the requisite infrastructure to power them. 

A new leadership response should be able to use 4 years to lay the groundwork. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33. By proposing these, I’m not also suggesting a president should spend an entire 4-years focusing on these basic things and not doing anything else. In fact, some of these fundamental things are already in place. 

However, some require improvements, others require starting afresh, others require complete demolishing, etc. My point here is that, if I were the president, within the first 4 years of my administration, I would spend at least 80% of the resources of the country in tackling these basic problems and the 20% on the other “big things.”