Why Ghana Remains Underdeveloped

"... how do you solve poverty if you have a nationally sanctioned document like the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRSP) that says “the role of government makes considerable case for the government to intervene directly in the economy” and recommends foreign aid and its appendages to ‘finance’ our poverty. Pages vii-viii of the GPRSP for instance, recommends that funds from on-going poverty related projects, HIPC savings, Government of Ghana sources (including the growing tax menace) additional donor support among others, should be used in costing and financing our poverty. It should interest Kwame Avege to learn that such recommendations that tie our apron strings to foreign aid money and planned policies have been our nemesis. Time and again staggering figures have been mentioned as national debt contracted mainly through loans from the Bretton Woods Institutions. Yet the reality is that many of such unaccountable loans end up in the pockets of the politicians or used for funding some electioneering gimmick that is short-lived.

A Ghanaian commentator sums up the results of foreign aid as 'dirty uncovered gutters, kids running around not going to school, cluttered heaps of rubbish burning all over; streets clogged with traffic and smoking vehicles; water shortages; sporadic electricity supply; a corrupt judiciary and even more corrupt executive branch; party politicking about nothing; small and petty-minded government officials etc; no medical delivery system to speak of; an ineffective commercial system that does not encourage private investment; a rural population that simply subsists on less than $1 per day; fraud in public transactions; a parliament of jesters who don't know what they are doing and a general helter-skelter atmosphere of incompetence and mediocrity all around.' "

Read more on this and other developmental issues at the excellent » IMANI Center for Policy & Education Homepage.