What Ghanaians can do to make Mahama’s reset possible

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There is widespread optimism amongst Ghanaians after the return of John Mahama to the Presidency. He pledged, in his inaugural address, to tackle the macroeconomic environment to help private businesses, anchored around agriculture and agribusiness, improve governance and accountability and tackle public health/environmental sustainability to make us ready for the next pandemic.

He is off to a great start. He has already established ORAL and issued a directive to the IGP to investigate the election-related deaths of Ghanaians in 2020 and 2024 and another to halt the corrupt sale of public lands.

All Ghanaians must applaud the President for his vigorous start. On the economy, it seems that the biggest brake, in addition to energy supply, has been the absence of affordable credit. Ultimately, we need a robust and widely available credit system based on data about who we are and where we live.

This will help our economy to take off. In most Western economies, housing is a primary sector and accounts for a lot of construction, leading to sales and jobs and accounting for a major part of personal wealth. Housing accounts for more than 15% of US economic activity and more than a third of personal wealth here.

In Canada and other Western countries, housing is even more significant in economic activity and wealth creation and this is driven mainly by credit. Anchoring economic revival round Agriculture is great because we need to grow what we eat.

Another area of significant opportunity is tourism. It contributes about 10% to the global GDP. In 2023, about 1.1 million tourists visited Ghana and spent about 3 billion USD. With our stock of coastal forts and history of slavery and the African Diaspora’s interest in slavery, we are uniquely positioned to be a major tourist destination anchored around our unfortunate history of slavery.

Next, we must court our Diaspora assiduously, for their skills, investment potential and global perspectives. According to the World Bank, in 2023, Ghanaians remitted 4.6 billion USD home, out of the 54 billion USD sent to Africa. That was more than what the NADAA government got by going back to the IMF!.

We must have a business initiative for Diasporans, remove bottlenecks for the return of Diasporans, Implement ROPAL and pass the DUAL citizenship bill. In all this, our target should not be the Diasporans born in Ghana but their children, born to them in the Diaspora.

These children are better educated, more professional and global citizens who can compete in the global marketplace. And they are first-class Ghanaians, despite not being born in Ghana because Ghana was born in each one of them.

Next, the President pledged to tackle public health and environmental sustainability to make us ready for the next pandemic. Frankly, if we do not tackle GALAMSEY, it will finish us practically before the next pandemic.

While we must commend the President for his vigorous start, I cannot wait for his first actions on GALAMSEY. It will go a long way to determine the success of the President’s reset.

Finally, there is a lot of “spectatoring” rather than “citizenship ” that goes on in Ghana. When the President said, “I am Ghana”, “You are Ghana”, it was a simple but deep clarion call. No President can fix Ghana all by himself or herself. Not even “our Kwame Nkrumah ” can fix Ghana alone.

While a President must appoint good and competent people to positions, sometimes, we fail our Presidents. An IGP should not require a Presidential directive to investigate the killing of his fellow citizens during elections. An Electoral Commission should not describe an election in which many citizens were killed and maimed as “peaceful”.

Parliament must not be entreated before doing executive oversight. Officials must not sell off state assets to themselves at donkomi prices. Patriots must not destroy our forests and pollute our rivers in pursuit of wealth.

And the media must not collude with politicians to deceive the people. American media joined Democratic leaders in hiding the mental decline of Biden and ended up helping to elect Trump. Maybe, if they had reported the truth and prevented Biden from being nominated, another Democrat might be succeeding Biden.

We must all go to work for Ghana as we sing and live Ephraim Amu’s “Yen Ara Yen Asase Ni”. May God Bless Ghana. May God bless you.