Ghana: Text of Address by Ghana’s President to U.S. Governors Meeting
I must, at the outset, express my sincere gratitude to the Chair of the National Governors Association, Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada, and the Vice Chair, Governor Steve Bullock of Montana, and, indeed, the entire membership of this Association, for the honour of this invitation to deliver this address at the National Governors Association 2018 Winter Meeting.
The Ghanaian people, the first in sub-Saharan Africa to free themselves from colonial rule some 61 years ago, and pacesetters, today, in the development of the principles of democratic accountability, respect for human rights and the rule of law on the African continent, are truly appreciative and deeply humbled by your choice of their leader and principal servant to be given the opportunity to address this important annual meeting, which groups together all 50 Governors, Republican and Democrat, of the states of this great federation, the United States of America.
I recognise the significance of the moment, as being the first leader from the continent to speak at this meeting. I hope that my country, Ghana, and, indeed, the African continent, will not be judged by any deficiencies of mine. Those are purely personal to me, and not at all representative.
Let me also express the gratitude of all freedom-loving peoples of the world to the men and women of this great country, the United States of America – the land of the free and the home of the brave. In the 20th century, the United States was largely responsible for seeing to it that the threats to freedom, posed by totalitarian ideas, such as Nazism, fascism, and communism, were defeated.
With the rapid spread of democratic values around the world, consequent upon that, America’s responsibility in this 21st century is to remain “the shining city upon a hill”, the force of whose ideas inspire greater chapters in man’s development in freedom. The space for democratic engagement, importantly in Africa, has certainly widened. In my country, we have decided to make a full fist of it.
In the era of the 4th Republic, we have experienced the longest, uninterrupted period of stable, constitutional governance in our history, banishing the spectre of instability that disfigured the early years of our nation’s existence. Indeed, on 7th January last, we celebrated its Silver Jubilee.
Democracy, equality of opportunity and respect for human rights, ideals which have stood the test of time, have now found firm anchor in our body politic. We have had 5 successive Presidents in the 4th Republic, with peaceful transfers of power from a governing to an opposition party on three separate occasions, the latest being in 2016, which brought me to office.
Ghana Beyond Aid – capable of mobilizing its own material and human resources – generating prosperity for her people
Ladies and Gentlemen, my party, the New Patriotic Party, and I won the 2016 elections because the Ghanaian people were dissatisfied with their living conditions and the direction in which Ghana’s economy, and, indeed, the country was headed. They believed we were different, and could put in place the requisite measures to improve their living conditions.
My government’s programme of economic transformation is hinged on restructuring the institutions of our governance, modernising our agriculture to enhance its productivity, a clear industrial policy, and rationalising the financial sector so that it supports growth in agriculture, and growth in manufacturing and industry. In my view, that is the way we can build a resilient economy, and lead Ghana to a situation beyond aid. That is, indeed, our goal – a Ghana Beyond Aid; a Ghana capable of mobilizing its own material and human resources to build a strong economy capable of generating prosperity for the mass of her people, a Ghana no longer dependent on hand-outs and charity.
To this end, and over the past 13 months, the period of stay of my government in office, we have begun to work on the fundamentals of the economy, because we believe that an improved macro-economy is a basic requirement for stimulating the investments we need for the rapid expansion and growth of the Ghanaian economy, and the generation of wealth and jobs. This has led to the growing strength of the economy, from a growth rate of 3.6% in 2016 to 7.9% in 2017; the stabilisation of our currency, the cedi; reduction in inflation from 15.6% at the end of 2016 to its current level of 10.3%; a revival of Ghanaian industry, from a growth rate of -0.5% in 2016 to 17.7% in 2017; reduction in interest rates, and the fiscal deficit from 9.3% to 5.6% of GDP; and the abolition of nuisance taxes, with the aim of shifting the focus of the Ghanaian economy from an emphasis on taxation to an emphasis on production. We are also putting in place strong measures to increase revenue mobilisation, by plugging leaks and reforming the existing tax exemption regime.
This process of economic and industrial transformation is going along with ensuring that the most basic elements of social justice are met. We have begun to make quality basic education, i.e. education from kindergarten through to secondary school, accessible to all of Ghana’s children.
Through my government’s policy of free secondary education in our public schools launched in September 2017, at the beginning of this academic year, 90,000 more children gained access to senior high school in 2017, than they did the year before. Equally, accessible healthcare to all our citizens, through an efficient and financially self-sustaining National Health Insurance Scheme, is a crucial goal of my government. We do all this to promote a culture of incentives and opportunity, to unleash the considerable ingenuity, creativity and entrepreneurial talents of our people, especially of our youth.
This is the surest path to national prosperity, bolstered by an enhancement of public accountability. Last Friday, before my departure for this visit, I appointed the first Special Prosecutor in our history, a known, respected anti-corruption crusader, whose task will be to deal, exclusively, with issues of corruption, and hold public officials, past and present, accountable for their stewardship of our nation’s public finances.
A key challenge of our economy, like many other economies in Africa, is our infrastructural deficit. We are embarking on an aggressive public-private-partnership programme to attract investment in the development of both our road and railway infrastructure. We are hopeful that, with solid private sector participation, we can develop a modern railway network with strong production centre linkages, and with the potential to connect us to our neighbours to the north, i.e. Burkina Faso, the west, i.e. Cote d’Ivoire, and to the east, Togo. Apart from prosecuting the agenda of building, with the private sector, at least one factory in each district of Ghana, the time has come for Ghana to develop strategic industries out of its abundant natural resources of bauxite and iron ore.
We shall, shortly, establish an Integrated Bauxite/Aluminium Development Authority to assemble the relevant financial resources for the systematic exploitation and development of our bauxite deposits. By the same token, we have decided to exploit our substantial iron ore and manganese deposits, situated in the Western and Northern regions of our country, to build an integrated steel industry to serve the needs of our country and region.
Opportunity for American capital, technology & enterprise in Ghana and Africa
We are making systematic efforts to develop our new oil and gas industry, into which ExxonMobil has just appeared, signing on 18thJanuary, this year, a major offshore oil and gas exploration and production agreement with Ghana. We are determined also to establish the relevant petrochemical industries to take advantage of the growth of our oil and gas industry.
There is a lot of opportunity for American capital, technology and enterprise in Ghana, and, indeed, in Africa, and we welcome companies from all your states to participate in the exceptional opportunities that exist in our country and on the continent.
We appreciate the continuing support offered to our country, and to the financing of our budgets by the American people and their government. Thus, towards the holding of the 2016 elections in Ghana, the election which brought me to office, the United Stated contributed some $7 million towards the holding of that election.
We received $547 million from Millennium Challenge Compact I, negotiated by the Kufuor Government with the Bush Government, when I was Ghana’s Foreign Minister. It was satisfactorily completed. Under MCC Compact II, negotiated by the successor Mills/Obama governments, nearly $500 million is being invested in Ghana to improve power generation. Nonetheless, I believe, the time has come for a new form of relationship between Ghana and the United States of America. We are not disclaiming aid, but we do want to discard a mind-set of dependency; it is unhealthy both for the giver and for the receiver. We want our relations with the United States to be characterised by a substantial increase in trade and investment co-operation. This is the way to develop healthy relations between our two countries, and, thereby, strengthen our economies, and raise the living standards of our two peoples.
Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you not to ignore our continent. Many people say that this is the Asian century, but I believe strongly that this can be Africa’s century. Our growth in 2015 was second only to that of Asia. According to the World Bank, six of the world’s ten fastest growing economies, this year, are in Africa. We are rich in natural resources, and in possession of nearly 30 percent of the earth’s remaining mineral resources.
We have a vibrant young population, and, though we still have important security challenges, we are more at peace than before, despite the distressing events in DR Congo, leading to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The African Union has to rise to the occasion, and mobilise the global community to find a peaceful, democratic outcome to the crisis. We now see the beginnings of meaningful intra-regional trade, which is about to be given an institutional framework by the historic decision of the African Union to bring into being, on 21st March, 2018, the Continental Free Trade Area. In my own region of ECOWAS, for the first time since its establishment, all 15 member countries have democratically elected governments, which gives us a great opportunity to prosecute vigorously the agenda of regional integration, not just with words, but with concrete regional projects that will benefit our populations. This is the time to look at Africa.
Africa cannot continue travelling the worn path of being exporters of raw materials.
Yes, it is disheartening to find that African youths do not see a future in their respective countries, and are willing to cross the Sahara desert on foot and drown in the Mediterranean Sea, in a desperate bid to reach the mirage of a better life in Europe. With the majority of African economies dependent on the production and export of raw materials, who can blame them for wanting to leave? These economies cannot produce wealth and prosperity for the masses on the continent. It, therefore, drives the determination to seek a much better standard of living out of Africa, thereby, fuelling the refugee crises and the numerous counts of illegal migrations. The large wave of migrations into the United States from Ireland and Italy, in the 19th century, has completely subsided because the economies of the two countries are working properly.
We, in Africa, cannot continue travelling the worn path of limited success of being exporters of raw materials. Our problems require that we think outside of the box. Our thinking and approach to solving problems must be different from the thinking and approach that brought about the problems in the first place. The only way to ensuring prosperity in Africa and jobs for our young populations is through value addition activities, in a transformed and diversified, modern economy, in which we take full advantage of the digital revolution. In other words, the industrial development of our continent, and we are determined to ensure the realisation of this, so that our young people can stay and devote their great energies to the building of a great Africa.
It is worth recounting, at this juncture, the inspiring words of the American politician, William Jennings Bryan that: “Destiny is not a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
There are many amongst us who cannot accept that it is only Asians who can engineer, in a generation, their transition from poverty to prosperity. We are determined to do that in our generation in Ghana, on the continent, and ensure that succeeding generations will be neither victims nor pawns of the global order. This will serve as the impetus for re-shaping the continent and charting a new path of growth and development in freedom, which will lift the long suffering African masses out of poverty into the realms of prosperity and dignified existence.
In conclusion, let me reaffirm the commitment of my government and Ghana in standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the promotion of human rights on the African continent, and across the globe. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the rejection of terrorism as a legitimate means of resolving political issues.
We appreciate the courageous commitment and the lead role being played in the fight against terrorism by the United States in several parts of the world, including the Sahel region of West Africa. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in attempting to develop our economies to provide opportunities for its citizens to fulfil their aspirations, especially the youth. We stand ready to renew and deepen our relations with the United States of America for the prosperity and progress of our two peoples.
May God bless us all, and the peoples of the United States of America and Ghana. I thank you for your attention, and wish you fruitful deliberations.
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