Create right environment for private sector

President John Dramani Mahama has urged African governments to create the right environment for the private sector to play a significant role in their respective economies.

He again called on his colleague African leaders to promote value-addition to the natural resources in their countries.

President Mahama, who made the call in his address at the Forbes Afrique forum in the Congo last Tuesday, said those measures were crucial because African countries needed to reorient their economies away from what was prescribed to them by their colonial masters and the international financial institutions.

He said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had one prescription for all the economic maladies in African countries, a situation which worsened poverty in Africa.

Hosted by the Congolese President, Dennis Sassou N’guesso, the forum focused on the emerging middle class in Africa and what the continent needed to do to reduce or eradicate poverty.

A former United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, a number of African leaders, as well as high-level business executives in Africa, took part in the forum.

President Mahama was in Congo for a two-day working visit at the invitation of President N’guesso.

The two leaders had earlier held a meeting and pledged their commitment to deepen trade, diplomatic and cultural relations between Ghana and the Congo.

President Mahama’s address at the forum touched on the chequered political history of Africa from the late 1960s and the various structural adjustment programmes, and considered the human and natural potential of Africa and prospects for the continent.

Private sector/value addition

The President recalled that when he was a Minister of Communications 15 years ago, at a time efforts were being made to deregulate the telecommunications sector, many people said if the private sector came in it could threaten the security of the state.

“Today, I look back and see how far not only Ghana but also the whole of Africa has come in respect of the telecom sector,” he said.

President Mahama said what was achieved in the telecom sector could be replicated in other sectors, particularly energy and transport.

“Let us deregulate the energy sector and let the private sector invest and produce energy to feed industry and for domestic consumption. Let the private sector invest in transport and be able to move our people across the continent,” he said.

Touching on value-addition, he said the Ghana government intended to build an integrated aluminium project by fitting in the missing link to mine bauxite, produce alumina and feed the alumina to the VALCO aluminium smelter to either export or use it locally.

In addition, he said, the government would build a gold refinery in Ghana to refine gold and build a jewellery industry to be able to export world-class jewellery.

Political development

Most African countries, including Ghana, President Mahama said, made some progress after independence.

He noted, however, that eventually coups d’etat started to take place, with the governance of many countries alternating between military and civilian leaders.

“From the late 1960s until the early 1990s, we existed in a state of instability. And, of course, you cannot have any progress where you have instability and conflict,” he said.

Structural adjustment

The President said aside from the instability that Africa inflicted on itself, the continent was misled by international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

For instance, he said, the structural adjustment programme, which called for the removal of all subsidies in the 1970s, worsened poverty in Africa.

“There were no safety nets put in place to cushion the poor and the vulnerable while we were readjusting the economy and so agriculture suffered,’’ he said.

President Mahama said today, the world had recognised that it was necessary for society to progress as one, since no country could achieve the kind of progress it desired if one section of society lived in absolute wealth while the majority wallowed in poverty.

Therefore, he said, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had been developed, with a resolution by countries to cut to half, poverty, achieve universal primary education, eradicate HIV/AIDS, reduce by half maternal mortality and ensure access to clean drinking water by 2015.

“What this shows is that typical capitalist concepts of economics to fix economies will not work on a continent like Africa. You need to advance the nations of this continent in unison and not in segments,” he said.