Director of Special Programs at Odekro, a non-profit Parliamentary monitoring organization in Accra, Kinna Likimani, has stated that Ghana needs to decolonize its economy. She said that Ghana needs to be independent in its production and value addition of goods.
“We have never actually made a real effort to decolonize our economy”, she explained, adding that when the government decides to reconstruct its economy around certain sectors like agriculture, a significant portion of the production must be owned by the country.
“It has never made any sense that we produce, we grow cocoa, and yet the vast majority of earnings from the cocoa value chain isn’t in Ghana. It does not benefit our farmers, so it’s not just about restructuring our economy. We need to decolonize our economy so that we are still not an extractive entity for Western powers, which is what we still are.”
Kinna Likimani
According to her, this government is not intentional about changing the structure of the economy. She added that, every leader that comes into power talks about industrializing the country, yet they have no commitment towards it. She admitted that, decolonizing and reconstructing the economy was going to make things difficult for Ghanaians in the short term.
However, Likimani mentioned that the reconstructing of the economy was going to benefit Ghanaians in the long term, and this is something the country needs to do to avoid suffering with no plan to own any of these productions.
“It’s one of the things to really judge whether any kind of leadership is serious about building Ghana in such a way that benefits and improves Ghanaian lives.”
Kinna Likimani
She said that this was how the restructuring should be and it is a mark of great achievement for any government who manages to undertake this operation because of the long term positive impact it was going to have on Ghanaians.
Foreigners Have Overtaken Our Businesses
Popular award-winning journalist, Johnny Huhges bemoaned that the country is full of individuals from different countries who have taken over both wholesale and retail businesses in Ghana.
He stated that most of these foreigners came from countries like Togo, Nigeria, China and many others, and they have gained employment as masons, carpenters and tilers among others. With reference from the GIPC laws, he explained that it was wrong for these foreigners to overtake the businesses of Ghanaians.
“These days the thing is so painful that carpenters are at home, masons at home, plumbers are at home, and yet you find out work is ongoing but it is not our people that is doing it. These days you hail a taxi or any of these hailing services and you find out that it’s a foreigner driving you.”
Johhny Huhges
According to him, these foreigners are doing all the things that the law prohibits and nothing is being said about this. He mentioned that the foreigners have taken over the jobs that are meant to be for Ghanaians, and yet the government is doing nothing about and rather begs for money from international sources.
“They are wholesaling and retailing at the same time and the authorities know, the authorities are aware, they know. They’ve seen it but they are giving a blind eye to it.”
Johnny Hughes
He urged the managers of the economy to put in measures to save the local economy.
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