ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
The farmer in my village has to rely on loan sharks to enable them to clear the land for planting; hence serious limitation on size and expansion, and yet, almost every farmer who owns his or her house which is properly titled can use it as a security to obtain loans to invest in their farms.
The Agricultural Development Bank which was set up to assist and promote agriculture lost its way and lazily found it easier and convenient to deal in government securities.
The rural bank idea has not lived up to its promise.
These are all missed opportunities for transforming our agriculture and creating jobs.
Agriculture still remains at a subsistence level whilst rural youth move in droves to the cities in search of employment.
Additionally, a key factor is the state of infrastructure including; healthcare provision, cost of energy, availability of water, and the state of our roads.
These are important determinants of the cost of investments.
Investors often seek guidance from the World Bank Ease of doing business ranking.
In the latest edition of the report (2017), Ghana dropped 12 places from 108 to 120 out of 190.
That must be a great cause of concern and worry to all of us.
Within the sub-region however, Ghana ranked top and 12 th out of 47 countries in Africa behind countries like Mauritania, Rwanda, Kenya, Botswana and Zambia.
The report assesses areas such as starting a business, dealing with contracts, getting electricity, registration of property, payment of taxes, trading across borders, getting credit, protecting minority investments, enforcement of contracts and resolving insolvency.
They are mirrored in the issues I discussed at the beginning of this presentation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, As I said earlier, all investors regardless of nationality will share these concerns.
I’m afraid that our past efforts at investment promotion have focused largely on attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
As desirable as Foreign Direct Investment is, in and off itself, FDI cannot be depended upon to transform in a meaningful and sustainable way the Ghanaian economy.
Sixty years since our independence, the Ghanaian equity ownership of the economy is insignificant.
The key drivers of Ghana’s recent economic growth has been the services sector, mining and oil sectors.
It will be instructive to look at the local equity in these sectors.
There are now five service providers in the telecoms industry namely; Vodafone, MTN, Expresso, GLO Ghana and Airtel/Tigo.
Apart from the minimal Ghana government equity interest in Vodafone (which came from its diversification of interest in Ghana Telecom), there is hardly any Ghanaian equity interest in any of the other companies.
Nigeria with its population of over 150 million, the second largest provider GLO is 100% Nigerian owned and all other telecoms providers - including MTN - have significant Nigerian equity shareholding.
The banking sector is no different.
Out of 35 registered banks in Ghana, only 21% (8) are Ghanaian owned.
This percentage does not reflect the true state of Ghanaian ownership once we look at the capitalization.
Contrast that with the top 10 Banks in Nigeria, all being Nigerian owned many of whom are now prominent in our economy and have gone international.
The mining sector is even more depressing.
I can assure you that, the Ghanaian private equity interest in all mines put together will not be 1% and because of the lack of integration with the local economy, the related service sector for mining is also significantly foreign.
The situation is no different from our emerging oil and gas sector.
Even with our Stock Exchange, surprisingly a large percentage of the equity is foreign and we all know that such capital can leave without notice with negative consequences for the economy.
Chairman, For as long as we do not actively encourage greater Ghanaian equity participation in the economy, real economic growth will be elusive.
I am not advocating a truncation of FDI.
Neither am I advocating a total local bias to the exclusion of foreign participation.
That would be suicidal!
Within the framework of international treaties and agreements to which we are party, government must make a conscious effort to promote enhanced local participation and equity in the economy.
My point is that, if greater efforts go into the empowerment of Ghanaians to become significant equity holders of the economy, at a minimum, that capital would be more stable as dividends and profits will be retained in the country.
We should not be shy and apologetic in our efforts to encourage and protect Ghanaian businesses.
Ha-Joon Chang in his book “the Bad Samaritans” stated that his rigorous research indicated that almost all the rich countries today protected their local companies until they were of “age”.
Ladies and gentlemen in the 70s we used to have thriving industries in poultry, textiles and road construction.
Now almost all our poultry is imported, more than 60% of our tilapia comes from China and of course the construction industry is now predominantly foreign.
We even got a foreign construction company to dig up the graves at Asomdwe park.
Our experience tells us that foreign investors are given preferential treatment over Ghanaian investors.
There are many examples of foreigners enjoying far better incentives than their Ghanaian counterparts in similar investments.
In empowering Ghanaians, we must be guided by an observation made so eloquently by my friend Dr.
Ken Kwaku, the former head of MIGA in Africa; “Don’t do for the foreigner what you won’t do for the local”.
Ghana has never been short of entrepreneurs.
We have had our, Siaw, Boakye Mattress, Swedru Contractors, Appiah Menkah, to name a few.
We have not created our Dangote’s and other champions for two key reasons; Business has been demonized and politicized.
Ghanaian owned businesses have been at the mercy of political cycles.
The perception is that governments undermine businesses whose owners are considered politically unfriendly.
Ghanaian entrepreneurs are on tenterhooks and walk on eggshells at every election because depending on where you stand your expectation is either patronage or retribution.
This is mainly because of the level of government influence in the economy.
Business is often demonized and, all entrepreneurs are perceived to be crooks.
In the 1970’s (second republic) sixth form students of Achimota School were asked what their career plans were.
All of them mentioned professions like doctors, lawyers, accounts, musicians, footballers and the like.
When they were further asked why they did not mention business, they said business people were “thieves” whose only aim was to rob the state.
The combined effect of all of these factors is that the growth of Ghanaian businesses as compared to Nigeria has been stifled.
A reversal of this unsatisfactory and unhealthy situation would require a complete mindset change at all levels of society.
A new approach under which we generate local interest and ownership of private business must be grounded on a conscious promotion of national capitalism!
Economic empowerment doesn’t just happen, it is a deliberate and direct consequence of government policies and actions.
Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and our sister nation Nigeria have done better than us because they have made it possible for nationals to play a major role in economic activity.
We can and must learn from the empowerment experience of these countries.
We must not repeat their mistakes.
As an example, we must avoid creating seasonal local entrepreneurs through political patronage.
Tribal and ethnocentric considerations, family affiliation and friendships must not be the only route to gain business opportunities.
Crony capitalism comes with too high a price.
This is a key lesson we must learn from Malaysia in their two decades promotion of “bumiputra” (Malay sons of the soil policies).
The consequences were massive corruption, cronyism and Malays fronting for local Chinese and foreigners, the so-called “Ali Babas!”
Similarly, the unintended consequences of the Black Empowerment policies of South Africa must not be lost on us.
The government needs to institute measures to rachet up local investor confidence.
We can draw lessons from the Business Environment Strengthening for Tanzania (BEST) Program, the Targeted Intervention Program for Empowerment & Economic Growth (TIPEEG) in Namibia which focuses on mining (diamond) and fishing and the Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa and the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment in that same country which lifted many of their citizens out of their economic doldrums.
Contracting and procurement provide government with the opportunity to assist local SMEs and ventures with supply contracts.
Government is a “Big Spender” so it must create the opportunity for small local businesses to feed into most of these large infrastructural and industrialization projects.
Procurement contracts must not be priced out of the reach of Ghanaian SMEs.
Such contracts should be divided into smaller lots for many local businesses to partake in.
The Local Content Bills ought to be fully operationalized.
We need to plan today for the health of our economy tomorrow through critical human resource development in all our strategic sectors.
We must make a conscious effort to tap into the Ghanaian diasporian pool of talent and capital.
The experience of India in developing its ICT sector is based on Indian Diasporan capital and talent.
Software Engineers from Silicon Valley were provided with tax incentives, dual citizenship among others to fast-track investment in India.
Today India is a world leader in the software industry.
A good start has been made with the establishment of a diasporan desk at the Presidency.
There should be a deliberate effort to change local minds about local products through policy.
In South Korea during the 1960s, the government through the educational system succeeded in making people believe that consuming foreign goods (especially if they were made in the country) was unpatriotic.
Merely smoking a foreign-made cigarette could get you reported to the authorities.
What currently pertains in Ghana and indeed many African countries is not conducive to developing indigenous capital.
There is little faith in things made in Ghana.
We have an inordinate taste for foreign goods whether food items, clothing electronics, footwear not to forget toothpick and toilet paper.
This mindset issue manifests itself even at official levels.
Recently, the rehabilitated GIHOC shoe factory in Kumasi had cause to publicly complain about the continuous importation of boots for the security services to the neglect of their brand of boots.
It is also not very necessary to reinvent the wheel in terms of policies aimed at building indigenous or national capital, especially where there are best modules that address our situation in Ghana.
These BEST, BBBEE, TIPEEG and Singaporean examples I have already cited could be adopted and adapted to suit our circumstances.
We must consciously strive to create Business Champions just as Nigeria has done with Dangote, UBA, Zenith Bank, First Bank, Glo, GT Bank, just to name a few.
Let us begin with value addition to cocoa, our precious metals and the massive opportunities in ICT to develop software entrepreneurs.
Government must move away from the age-old provider of all things to a facilitator of all things.
We must strategically transform ourselves from agriculture to agribusiness and from mining to mining beneficiation.
We must move away from being mere planters of cocoa beans to manufacturers of world-class chocolate products.
We must allow our nationals to participate in these sectors as investors and shareholders.
Shining examples like Kasapreko Company Limited must not be left to their own strengths to prod along.
They must become national reference points to the world by both private and national promotional efforts.
In a recently held conference in Abuja, when the name Dangote was mentioned, it was made very clear by Nigerians officials present that; “Dangote is a national institution….
This is the spirit and attitude we should have when it comes to providing support to Ghanaian businesses.
Our officials from relevant sector ministries and institutions should emulate such laudable examples of supporting their own.
Ladies and gentlemen, To create jobs we need investment and to attract private investors we need to ensure that the environment is and remains competitively attractive.
Further, I have illustrated with examples from countries which were once our peers at independence and other African countries, how national capitalism can be promoted.
I, therefore, believe that, given the opportunity with strong government support in creating the requisite environment for national capitalism, the Ghana entrepreneur can deliver growth with jobs that will lead to sustainable development for our motherland.
It is my conviction that for some time now, this is the best opportunity to take these ideas into action.
We must avoid what the Malaysians call TONA (Talk Only No Action).
Chairman, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, We are either serious about national capitalism or we are not at all.
If we are then we better get it right and do it right!
We must implement the ideas that we all know with the fierce urgency of now.
On behalf of the National Democratic Congress, I will like to thank you for honouring our invitation at such short notice.
The purpose of this press conference is to share with you our position on the raging issue of the judgement debt of USD$170 million dollars that has been awarded against the Republic of Ghana to a company called, Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) by the Permanent Court of Arbitration of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Tribunal, an issue that has set many tongues wagging in the past couple of days.
We are pretty sure that by the time we are done unpacking the facts of this case in this evidence-based presentation, you will be left in no doubt about how we got ourselves into this avoidable financial loss situation and the personalities who are responsible for the same.
BRIEF BACKGROUND Friends from the media, let me start by providing a brief background to this issue in order to situate the discussion in a proper context.
As we all know, Ghana was confronted with a serious power crisis also known as “Dumsor” between the year 2013 and 2015 which negatively affected citizens, businesses and the economy as a whole.
This problem which was not a new phenomenon was largely occasioned by a power generation capacity shortfall.
The visionary Nation Builder, H.E John Dramani Mahama who was the President of the country at the time, did not seek to apportion blame but instead took full responsibility for the age-long problem and set out to address the country’s generation capacity deficit through the fastest mobilization of emergency power ever witnessed in the history of this country.
The goal was not only to produce power to meet our immediate power demand as a country but to produce more power to meet our ever-increasing future power needs and more importantly, to potentially increase the amount of power we export to neighboring and other Sahalian countries for revenue.
One of such Emergency Power Agreements (EPA) that the erstwhile NDC/Mahama administration executed in furtherance of this vision was the EPA with the Ghana Power Generation Company (GPGC) for the supply of 107MW of power.
The Agreement which was signed on 3rd June, 2015 was negotiated by a competent team of technical experts from the then Ministry of Power, the Electricity Company of Ghana, the Volta River Authority and the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
After this crack team of experts had negotiated the EPA and approved its contents, the EPA was approved by Cabinet and later, the Parliament of the Republic Ghana on 23rd July, 2015 with the NPP-side fully participating in the approval process, both at the Mines and Energy committee level and at the plenary.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is worthy of note that among the EPAs executed by the Government of Ghana, the GPGC EPA was the one with the most favorable terms for us as a country.
Firstly, it had a capacity charge of of 4 US Cents per KW/H with GoG’s payments denominated in Ghana cedis and secondly, it had the shortest duration of four (4) years.
Thirdly, and more importantly, it was the only EPA under which the Government of Ghana was not required to provide any financial guarantee or standby Letters of Credit.
WRONGFUL TERMINATION OF GPGC EPA Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the implementation of the GPGC EPA proceeded smoothly under the Mahama/NDC administration until the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government took over the reins of power in the year 2017.
On 13th February, 2018, the Minister for Energy, Boakye Agyarko wrote to terminate the GPGC EPA.
The termination of the GPGC EPA, according to Boakye Agyarko, was on the instructions of Cabinet, which is chaired by President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
It is instructive to note that the reasons which were cited by the Akufo-Addo government as the basis for the termination of the GPGC EPA did not include any issue of excess power or excess capacity charges as government would have us believe.
Rather, the reasons which were contained in Boakye Agyarko’s termination letter of 13th February, 2018 and the Advice of the then Attorney General, Gloria Akufo dated 28th August, 2017, bordered on alleged non-performance of certain Conditions Precedent and Subsequent by GPGC, namely; Failure of GPGC to secure a license from the Energy Commission to enable them engage in the sale of electricity in the country, in accordance with section 11 of the Energy Commission Act.
Failure of GPGC to secure a siting and construction permit for the project.
Failure of GPGC to achieve financial closure.
Distinguished friends from the media, all these claims by the Akufo-Addo government which formed the basis for the termination of the GPGC EPA were found to be contrived and baseless by the Permanent Court of Arbitration of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.
At paragraph 479 of the Arbitral Award, all the three (3) Arbitrators, including Ghana’s selected Arbitrator, Professor Fiadjoe, unanimously held that these claims by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia Government did not “reflect the true facts”.
The Tribunal among other things, noted that GPGC had actually secured a building permit from the Kpone Katamanso District Assembly for the Blue Ocean project and had actually applied for a commercial license from the Energy Commission, save that, President Akufo-Addo had not constituted the Board of the Energy Commission, which is the body mandated by law to issue such Licenses at the time the Agreement was being terminated.
Additionally, the Tribunal found that all the Conditions Precedent and Subsequent that were yet to be fulfilled were wholly attributable to failings on the part of the Government of Ghana and not GPGC.
In short, the Arbitration Tribunal found that the termination of the GPGC EPA by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government was wrongful and without any lawful justification, for which reason the panel unanimously awarded damages of about USD$170 million against Ghana, inclusive of interest.
This can be found at paragraph 493 of the Arbitral award.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media, it is crystal clear from the foregoing facts that are contained in the Arbitral Award, that this huge judgement debt of USD$170 million has been occasioned by the criminal negligence, incompetence and recklessness of the Akufo-Addo government.
Their willful recklessness in terminating the GPGC EPA on the basis of contrived and frivolous basis is the reason why Ghana has been slapped with this avoidable judgment debt.
GoG’s CONCESSION THAT THE TERMINATION OF THE GPGC EPA WAS WRONG.
Friends, it will surprise you to know that after the GPGC EPA was terminated and the company appealed to government to rescind its decision, the Akufo-Addo government acting through the Minister of Energy and his Deputy conceded that the termination was wrong and gave the company several assurances that the President and Cabinet were going to take remedial steps to reinstate the terminated EPA.
Evidence of this fact is contained at paragraph 486 of the Arbitral award, and settles the fact that indeed President Akufo-Addo, the Minister of Energy at the time, Boakye Agyarko and the Attorney General are jointly and severally responsible for this USD$170 million financial loss to the State.
They knew and acknowledged that they had no basis to terminate the Agreement, yet they proceeded to terminate it and failed to remedy same by reinstating the EPA.
What is even sad in all this, is the fact that Ghana is now going to pay a whopping USD$170 million as judgement debt to a private company for a deal that would have caused the nation USD$99.6 million over the full four (4)-year duration of the Agreement.
That is, if the Agreement had been maintained and not terminated by the Akufo-Addo government.
FRAUDULENT CLAIMS ABOUT THE AHENKORA PPA COMMITTEE REPORT Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the NDC has taken notice of certain false claims by the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, and spokespersons of the Akufo-Addo government that the decision to terminate the GPGC EPA was based on a recommendation by the Ahenkora-PPA Committee that reviewed a number of PPAs executed by the previous NDC government.
Our painstaking investigation into this matter shows that, the claim that the PPA committee recommended the termination of the GPGC EPA is palpable falsehood.
In fact, this claim which is contained in an unsigned report making rounds on social media was part of the defenses of the Akufo-Addo government which were outrightly dismissed by the International Arbitration Tribunal in their decision.
Friends from the media, it will interest you to know that during cross examination at the arbitration proceedings, Dr.
Ahenkora, who was the chairman of the PPA committee and a key witness for the Government of Ghana, said that he could not recollect any such recommendation by the committee and dissociated himself from the AG’s advice that recommended the termination of the GPGC EPA.
This fact can be found at paragraph 490 of the Arbitral award.
This is how much the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government derilicted in its duty to protect the public purse.
Friends, does it not strike you as strange that Dr.
Ahenkora did not bother or see the need to ask the Arbitration Tribunal for leave to refresh his memory by referring to the committee’s report which was the main essence of his testimony?
FALSE ASSURANCES BY GoG TO GPGC It is also instructive to note that after the Ahenkora Committee concluded its work, officials of the Akufo-Addo government gave several assurances to GPGC that its PPA was not one of those which had been recommended for termination by the Committee.
This fact is captured at paragraph 491 of the Arbitral award.
This begs the question as to how the said recommendation which formed the basis of the termination of the GPGC EPA found its way into the unsigned report of the Ahenkora-chaired PPA committee.
In any case, how come that the said Ahenkora-Committee report was not signed by the Chairman and members of the committee?
Friends, as I have already indicated, our painstaking investigation into this matter shows that the said recommendation was fraudulently inserted into the draft Ahenkora report by political actors who were determined to terminate the GPGC Agreement at all cost even though they very well knew they had no lawful justification to do so and that, doing so could potentially occasion a judgement debt and financial loss to the State.
We in the NDC believe that the circumstances surrounding the smuggling of the said recommendation into the Ahenkora-committee report raise issues of fraud and must be investigated.
FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT PROPRIETY OF GPGC EPA Ladies and gentlemen of the media, we have also taken notice of desperate attempts by the Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, and some individuals to impugn the propriety of the GPGC EPA which was executed under the NDC/Mahama administration.