Kofi Bentil got it wrong on the EPAs

Kofi Bentil makes a very intriguing point about the so-called Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Ghana and the European Union.

Bentil’s argument for signing the EPA is that we have no better option.

But this is simply not true.

We can meet the needs of the very few – five or so – exporters who will suffer distress by not signing the ‪‎EPAs from the huge savings Ghana will make by not signing.

It will cost the exporters of banana, processed cocoa products and tuna a total of US$52 million annually in extra duties if we don’t sign. However, if we don’t sign, it will save the Ghanaian treasury a minimum of US$150 million (according to MOTI figures) or US$374 million (according to the‪#UNECA/South Centre) each year, which we could otherwise have lost in tariff revenue by signing.

Some of the savings can be used to support the distressed exporters for a period to allow them to diversify their export market.

That way, we will also save our domestic industries from the threat of inevitable collapse that signing the agreement will impose. We will also save the space for applying our own policies which will otherwise be sacrificed by signing the EPAs.

It is true that the EU has become even more single-minded in pursuit of its agenda for the deregulation of services, investment and government procurement, together with restrictive disciplines in IP and so forth – with the aim of obtaining free, unrestricted access for European investors to all sectors of Africa’s economies.

As to the thing about the EPAs being the result of failure of leadership and strategic thinking, that may be so, but we cannot punish the ordinary, hardworking people, producers, etc for the selfishness and irresponsibility of their leaders.

And nobody, as far as I am aware, has blamed colonialism for anything relating to the EPAs. The argument rather is that if we sign the EPAs in its current form, we will be returning our economy to what it was in colonial times/Guggisburg colonial economy – simple exporters of raw/bulk primary products in exchange for manufactured goods. i.e. Mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for the benefit of others in the international economic order.

Bentil doesn't seem to realize that the EPAs will take apart every attempt at regional integration in the sub-region. The ECOWAS region is a critical market for Ghanaian (and for that matter Nigerian, Ivorian and other West African) exporters of manufactured products and services. In effect, a full-blown EPA will sink Ghana’s attempts and future efforts at industrialization which really is a critical piece in moving this country into a meaningful middle income global player.

Even studies by the World Bank, apostles of liberalisation as we know them, have warned ECOWAS of the dire consequences of opening up their market by more than 60% in a free trade agreement. Under the EPAs Ghana will open its market by 75 %.

What Bentil doesn't also appear to get is that the EPA is a lock-in agreement, secured by a lock-in mechanism. At its barest, this means that if Ghana, for whatever reason, decides to offer better terms (than the EPA) to another country or bloc of countries, it will have to extend same to the EU. 

By the way, whatever meaningful leverage Ghana ever had to deal with such restrictive free trade agreements as the EPAs were whittled away under the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s and under HIPC/PRSP clan.

“Where Ghana Went Right” by John Schram | The Walrus | July 2010

“Where Ghana Went Right” by John Schram | The Walrus | July 2010

Ethnic card and an African election

There are countless examples across Africa of how misguided and power hungry politicians and other public office holders played the ethnic card in a bid to wrestle power and how those irrational acts decimated their own nations.

Rwanda is perhaps the best example but so is Kenya after the 2007 elections in which up to 1,500 people died from ethnic clashes. Even the Ivorian war was in part ethnically executed.

It’s against this backdrop that I find a pronouncement by Ghana’s caretaker President, John Mahama, who is seeking to retain power during the country’s December 7, 2012 elections most offensive.

President Mahama

Addressing the chiefs and people of Nankpanduri in northern Ghana during a campaign tour of the Northern Region this week, the President of one of Africa’s brightest democracies, seemed to appeal for their votes – not so much based on his vision, policies and the record of the ruling party but – simply because of where he comes from, the Northern Region. The bait to his ethnic cleavage, his kith and kin, is not only Machiavellian but also obnoxious.

Ironically, three of the four candidates that participated in the IEA presidential debate last Friday are from the northern half of the country but I don’t quite think that Ghanaians were bothered by that as much as the vision, policies and ideas they espoused on that platform.

With that unguarded statement, President Mahama has doubtlessly and quite deliberately so, drawn many Ghanaians away from the policy discourse they are craving for, to their differences, superficial as they are.

But Mahama is not alone in playing the ethnic card in this election. His main opponent, Nana Akuffo Addo in this election, a few months ago also made an ethnically charged statement trying to distinguish his Akan ethnic group from other ethnic groups in the country.

Nana Addo

The PPP’s Paa Kwesi Nduom has also made some ethnically charged in his recent campaigns. In a campaign stump speech a week ago in Cape Coast, capital of the Central Region, Nduom urged his supporters to ignore ‘Adze wo fie oye’ (understood to be a reference to the vice president Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur who is also from Cape Coast) and adopt ‘Adze papa wo fie oye’.

Nduom reframed his statement by urging his supporters: ‘Don’t just vote for a Fanti, but a Ghanaian who is competent….’ But by the time Nduom reframed his message the harm had possibly been done.

Ghana certainly deserves better. There are over 10 major ethnic groups in Ghana with many more sub-regroups.

Ghana elections: first of three debates, no clear winner

Ghanaians saw four of the main contenders vying for the presidency at a national debate last night on national television. It was the second real presidential debate since the country’s return to constitutional rule in 1992.

Ghanaians go the polls to elect a president and parliamentarians on December 7, 2012. The three big issues of the 2012 election are the economy, jobs and education. But the first of the three 2012 debates focused on the economy, social sector and private sector development/industrialization. 

Although the organizers initially listed foreign policy, it never really was on the menu last night.

Tuesday’s debaters were the care-take president John Mahama of the NDC, Dr Abu Forster of the CPP, the PNC’s Hassan Ayariga and Nana Addo of the NPP.

Here is my take on how the candidates faired in the first debate.

Abu Sakara’s delivery was brilliant: articulate and largely level-headed. He attacked, especially the president, without coming across as angry, overly ambitious or even worse, presumptuous. He brought his superior intelligence to the table. He reframed ‘problematic’ questions intelligently without saying so before answering them. I was only shocked at his wild take on the history of the CPP as a pro-private sector party. I guess he was only trying to distance himself from the statism of the past.

Nana Addo obviously was on the attack half of the time and that may have excited many, particularly the NPP base. Did it work? May be yes, may be no. Seriously, I am not so sure how that will play on the minds of undecided voters.

I thought Nana’s framing of the big picture – move GH out of export of raw commodity dependence to a light industrial manufacturing economy that adds value to provide sustainable jobs and improve quality of life of the average person – was great. But he seemed to have fallen short rather badly when it came to filling in the details. The ‘details’ he offered were either sketchy or contradictory or both. The linkage he tried drawing between his educational policy/programme to the structural transformation of the economy lacked depth, if you like, unconvincing.

Generally, he’s not a fiery person but I was shocked at President Mahama’s sluggish delivery. Was he thinking he had the presidency already in the bag? His framing of the big picture was uninspiring at best and quite frankly dubious. Albeit, he later provided elements that fit well into an economy that is ready to structurally take-off, transform into a full-fledged middle nation and is willing and capable of competing on the global stage. Sorry to say, i really Mahama is withering quite a number of potential voters who thought he was an excellent candidate after Mills.

Thing about this sort of debates is that substance matter and so does appearance (not so much looks) but connection to the population/viewers/listeners. Mahama didn’t sound convincing even with the figures. He didn’t seem like he really wants the job, that he deserves the job. Sakara was very methodical, clinical and compelling more than half of the time. Nana Addo’s passion meant he was sometimes very persuasive if even overly hawkish and downright annoying.

Hassan Ayariga provided comic relief. But why was his wife covering her face each time it was Ayariga's turn to answer a question? Ayariga clearly has inherited the domestication agenda left behind by Dan Lartey late leader of the GCPP.

It was a shame, the PPP’s Paa Kwesi Nduom was not allowed on the debate platform. According to the organizers, the Ridge-based Institute of Economic Affairs, the platform is designed for only parties contesting the elections that have at least one MP in parliament.

Two more presidential debates and one vice presidential debate are coming up. The first proper presidential debate was held in 2008. The 2000 and 2004 debates did not include some major parties.

Bangkok fight

Bangkok, Thailand may be the world's capital of 'smiles' but it's no smiling business at the climate change negotiations here. It's another big bare knuckle fight over the future of the earth.

Yours truly heading into the climate talks in the world's capital of 'smiles' - Bangkok

Parties, mainly Annex I (rich countries) have clashed with non-Annex I Parties (developing countries) yet again. Negotiating parties are split down the middle pretty much on every single substantive issue at the informal inter-sessional on climate change underway in Bangkok, Thailand. It's more than a fight over agenda and/or process. It's really about the future of the planet, how to save it from possible meltdown. 

Rich countries want two of the three negotiating tracks terminated at the end of 2012 in Doha, at COP 18, but developing countries which stand to lose the most from an overheating planet, think and rightly so, that the work streams of these two tracks (AWG-KP and AWG-LCA) under the Bali Action Plan have yet to be completed and therefore can and should only be closed when they have delivered on their mandates as per the Climate Convention. The third and newest work stream is the AWG-ADP (Durban decision).

Shutting down the work of the AWG-KP and the AWG-LCA at this stage will effectively leave rich countries off the hook to jump ship (to the AWG-ADP) without actually honouring their prior international commitments under these two tracks. And the big question is what will be the guarantee that any agreements reached under the Durban mandate in future will be honoured by wealthy countries given their failure, morally and legally, to do what they pledged to undertake under the two older negotiating tracks. So, this fight is about trust as much as it is about substance.

Ghana’s new veep

Ghana has a new vice president. Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur was vetted by Parliament and sworn-in on Monday, August 6. His appointment was necessitated by the accession of John Mahama as president of Ghana following the sudden death of President John Atta Mills on July 24, 2012.

Amissah-Arthur

 

Until his new appointment, Amissah-Arthur, 61, a former deputy minister of finance, was the governor of the central bank, the Bank of Ghana, (BoG). Forget about the fact that he’s not a charismatic person. Ghanaians have now gotten used to having non-charismatic leaders.

His appointment has generated mixed reaction from within the ruling NDC party. I think the larger Ghanaian public is quite unsure about what he brings to the table albeit he has played critical roles in crafting the country’s economic path over the better part of the last three decades. He spent about half of his entire working life at the Ministry of Finance.

Perhaps what Ghanaians can relate to most is his last posting as governor of the BoG. Amissah-Arther’s tenure at the BoG has seen the national currency, the Cedi, decline sharply against nearly all major trading currencies especially since the beginning of 2012.

Generally, the national currency has tended to come under severe pressure in an election year as this. And so there’s probably nothing new in the latest decline. What is new however is that the person who presided over this decline is now the vice president and the de facto head of the government’s Economic Management Team. A case of more of the same? It could be but not necessarily.

How this plays in the campaigns leading to the December 7, 2012 elections remains to be seen.

Mahama and Amissah-Arthur will serve out what remains of President John Atta Mills’ mandate. They will get the nod of the ruling party in September to contest the December polls together as the party’s presidential candidate(s).

President Mills’s departure, the orderly transition and impending presidential and parliamentary elections in December have focused minds on the health of Ghana’s democracy. The country has made some remarkable progress on the democratic path as exemplified by the 2008 elections, transfer of power and the smooth process leading to the assumption of office by a new president following the sudden death of Mills.

However Ghana’s democratic governance is beset with some deep-seated political problems. The policy making process is heavily centralized and the executive president is extremely powerful, too powerful for the good of the country. The system has also bred a strong party loyalty. The system of political patronage is neo-patrimonial, akin to single party form of governance. Equally debilitating is the weak institutional capacity at both the regulatory and political levels.

I will tackle some of these in a later blog.

Rawlings bucks tradition to draw first blood

Jerry Rawlings’ uncharitable and highly controversial comments about Mills and the cause of his death have drawn the ire of not only the family of the late leader but also the larger Ghanaian public.

Fact is, for a number of reasons, Ghanaians culturally, do not speak ill of the dead especially if the body has not been interred.

But unsurprisingly, Rawlings also left a cheeky comment when he signed the Book of Condolence for the late President on Friday, July 27.

Jerry Rawlings

Rawlings wrote: Fare thee well Prof. Let's hope we will do better at keeping those with destructive tendencies away and out of the national endeavours. Help to provide JM (John Mahama) with whatever guidance you can offer from where you are since you are now free - JJ Rawlings, July 27, 2012.

Rawlings won and governed a second term in office (before bowing out as demanded by the country’s constitution) under the 4^th republican constitution with Prof John Atta Mills as his vice president in 1996. Against the will of the rank and file of the NDC party, of which he is founder, Rawlings anointed Mills as his successor at Swedru in 1998 in the now famous “Swedru Declaration”.

But Rawlings became, by far, the fiercest critic of President Mills and his administration when the latter took office after the 2008 elections – until his death last Tuesday, July 24, 2012.

Actually I’ve been wondering the whole morning what non-confrontational Mills’ reaction would be like if he woke up the next minute to read or hear these comments by Rawlings.

Most certainly Mills, if he hadn’t changed, would simply say something to this effect: WE NEED PEACE. LET’S THEREFORE NOT DO ANYTHING TO UNDERMINE THE PEACE OF THIS COUNTRY!!!