Ghana Beyond Aid: Generating More Heat Than Light?

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s economic instinct to salvage Ghana from her dependence on international aid may be sound but critics say the president has not turned out to be a good salesman.

The question of how Nana Addo would sell this dream has been a contentious one, to put it mildly.

According to Mahama Ayariga, Member of Parliament (MP) for Bawku Central, in the Upper East Region, Ghana beyond Aid could be possible but he does not support “the position that Ghana should not take aid from developed countries.”

Commendably, Ayariga stressed that, Ghana deserves every bit of aid coming from our ‘former masters’ adding that Ghana amongst other African countries has contributed to development of the donor countries.

Speaking on Accra based Okay FM, he said “They (donors) exploited our natural resources to go and develop their countries. They exploited our human resources in the form of slaves to go and develop their plantations which is the foundation of their economy.”

Approaching the issue, as a moralist, the erstwhile Information Minister, says even today, donor countries are making use of a chunk of Ghana’s human resources—causing a brain drain on the economy.

“The majority of our doctors and experts are in Europe and North America serving their industries and their sectors and contributing towards the development of their economies and yet we used our tax payers’ money to train those people.

“So, what they have there, we are entitled to a fair share of it…in fact, we should be demanding more amounts from them. But when we take it, we should use it properly; we should use it properly to take ourselves from poverty,” Ayariga advised.

For the Bawku Central MP, donors are not being generous but are obliged to release funds to accelerate economic growth and alleviate poverty as well as meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa.

“We are the ones who must be insisting on ensuring that the amount they are giving us don’t come with all sorts of useless strings and conditionalities such as what the millennium compact is doing,” he said.

Ayariga continued: This one is disguised exploitation of a very insane type. So, we must fight those things but at the same time, we must also fight to make sure that we keep open the revenue that must come from them until we have equalised in terms of our economic development where we don’t need their money but for now we need it and must take it.”

Meanwhile, the views of Dr. Lord Mensah, a renowned economist speaking on Radio Gold, pits against that of Ayariga.

For him, he agrees with Nana Addo that it is time for Ghana to wean itself off international aid adding that, “…the time to wean ourselves off aid is now…but weaning yourself is a process.”

Throwing more light on the issue, Dr Mensah said, external aid constitutes about 1% of the nation’s budget while internal aid constitutes 6% of GDP.

“Those internal aids most of the time goes to state institutions and if you are able to put systems in place, to ensure that these state institutions raise revenue to a level where they would be able to wean themselves and cater for themselves, we should be able to sacrifice and go without aid from next year.

Come Clear Sir

Dim or Devious? Many seem not to understand what “Ghana beyond aid” is. Did the president say he was not going to accept handouts from Donors?

These were the words of Nana Addo in March, 2017; “We want to build a Ghana beyond aid; a Ghana which looks to the use of its own resources. We want to build an economy that is not dependent on charity and handouts, but an economy that will look at the proper management of its resources as the way to engineer social and economic growth in our country.”

But Deputy Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah says “Ghana Beyond Aid agenda is not intended to reject support from donors, but rather depend on local resources for the execution of its planned programs.”

To be continued

By: Grace Ablewor Sogbey/ [email protected]