Author: Mr. John Bewuah Edusei Vice President Of The Confederacy For The Development Of Poultry In Africa (CADA)
The time has come for us to look deep into the future and plan towards the future, as a Nation. It is said that a nation that fails to plan, plans to fail.
As a nation we have had so many Signals suggesting possible dooms for our future, but we simple turn deaf ears to them, simply not ready to plan, or to change. When it matters the white man will not come to feed us, before feeding themselves.
So do we wait for DEBT CONCILIATIONS or we will want to start producing the items that can be produced in Ghana and even Export our surpuluouses.
In 2020 there was the out break of COVID-19 which hit the whole world.
As part of the Principles and Protocols to curb the outbreak world wide, there were serious restrictions to movements of goods and services. So serious that flights, ships, production lines, had to stop.
Their end products were stuck in their warehouses and distributions of products restricted to the country of production, for fear of possible shortages to the countries of origin.
Then there was the outbreak of war in Ukraine and Russia, from February 2022 to date. Ukraine is one of the best producers of Maize and Wheat in the world.
As a result of the war, farms were seriously affected and Ukraine had to automatically stop exports of grains, to store enough for themselves FIRST. If you were relying on Ukraine for your grains, you were in trouble and your citizens had to suffer from the shortages.
WHO KNOWS WHEN THE NEXT WORLD WIDE DISASTERS ARE COMING ? But they will surely come because that is what the good book says. Luke 21: 11, Matthew 24 : 7, Mark 13 : 8.
I have already done a paper on a similar topic, when it came to light that the world’s Population was likely to hit 9.7 Billion by the year 2050 and 10.4 Billion by 2100. This was likely to bring about food shortages, especially in the area of Protein intake and Africa was likely to be the worse affected.
Till today, I have not seen any plans by our leaders to improve on Agricultural Production, especially in the area of Chicken and Protein production.
It’s been one thing after the other and propaganda to the average member of the populace, who do not know the facts and the truth, on the Ground.Till today our nation imports about 95 % of our CHICKEN REQUIREMENTS, worth about $500 MILLION. Then huge tonage of FISH and MEAT.
All the SUGAR AND MILK we use in this country are imported. We import huge tonages of TOMATOES, ONIONS, CARROTS, WATER MELLON etc from our dry neighbour Countries.
ALL our FLOUR required, directly or its WHEAT for local FLOUR production, imported. We import more than $1Billions of RICE, then there is the importation of Maize for BEER AND MALT Drinks, SOYA BEANS.
We import a lot of OILS, CONFECTIONARIES, TOMATO POWDER OR CONCENTRATES for CANNING or PACKAGING. This is not to mention the countless numbers of the other products, from AEROPLANES to TOOTH Pecks.
I am not an Economist, not at all, no where nearer that, but for sure one thing
I know about Economics is that, Countries that have huge :
1. BUDGET SURPLUSES ( When a government collects more in taxes than it spends, it is said to have a budget surplus.)
When a government spends more than it collects in taxes, it is said to have a budget deficit. If government spending and taxes are equal, it is said to have a balanced budget Or EXPORT SURPLUS, which is the excess of exports over imports, have very strong Economies.
As a Country GHANA, we are failing in all two scenarios. We are importing too many things into this country and one day when the world shuts its boarders, we will be found wanting. As I write now, TOMATOES and ONIONS have becomes so expensive on our markets.
This is simply because they come from Burkina Faso and any factors mitigating against it eg increase Transportation due to increase in feul cost, will bring prices increase. What is happening in Powlugu, Wenchi, Akomadan etc?
Why oh why, all we can do to destroy our green lands and water bodies in the game of Galamsey ? And our chiefs are looking on?
Eiiiiiiiiii!!!! We have an account to give to the owner of our lands and rivers ooooooo. And that one, you can not bribe the Judge, the Supreme Commander.
We were lucky to be given rich, green lands and all we do is to import basic food items and wait for DEBT CANCELLATIONS? OUR MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE SHOULD SIT UP.
So far, I have not heard any of our Political leaders talking this language. All they say is RESTRUCTURING the Economy, putting in place pragmatic measures to strengthen the local currency, the Cedi.
Please, please, ,please. there is no pragmatic approach anywhere to strengthen the Cedi, except to INCREASE LOCAL PRODUCTION, TO AVOID THE IMPORTATION OF THE THINGS THAT CAN BE PRODUCED IN GHANA.
So long as importation of basic things like Chicken, Tomatoes, Rice, etc continues, there will be changing of Cedis to Dallars, to import, and the CEDI will never be strong.
A few days ago I heard about DEBT CONCILIATION AND DEBT RESTRUCTURING WITH OFFICIAL CREDITORS, BOND RESTRUCTURING etc. Is it the case that the WHITE MAN should always give us some money before we improve our Economy?
Should we continue to rely on foreign funds leading to more borrowing ? And our leaders are not ashamed to make Politics and propaganda from this.
No matter how much they give us, if we do not learn to produce for ourselves, no amount of money will be sufficient for us to live on. Not only production, but enough of the production to Export, to bring in hard currency, to grow our Economy.
Again no amount of Dollars from the Bank of Ghana, released into the system, can control the value of the Cedi or stabilise the Dollar.
I have been privileged to be associated with Morocco in the last few years. Dry Morocco produces 11 Million pieces of Broiler Chicken every week, in addition to so much Friuts and Vegetables part of which is expored. Ghanaians eat about the same quantities of Chicken, but they are all imported.
MORROCO is a country in Africa and a major portion of their lands is dersertified, so Ghana has no excuse.
Apart from Production, I am aware of the huge MONEY CHANGING in our Banks and especially our MARKETS.
Today it is very easy for people in the BLACK MONEY EXCHANGE MARKET, to determine the price of all our foreign currencies and not the Bank of Ghana. This done by Simple Demand and Surply.
3. DEMAND AND SURPLY: Supply is the amount of a specific good or service that’s available in the market. (Demand is the amount of the good or service that customers want to buy. Supply and demand are both influenced by the price of goods and services.)
So, as and when there is huge demand, prices of the foreign currencies increase. When demand of the Dollar drops, the dollar gets cheaper. They don’t wait for the Bank of Ghana at all, its their business.
So our Economic indicators suffer as we sit and wait for some DEBT CANCELLATIONS and DEBT RESTRUCTURINGS.
Can we start planning into the future ? Can we stop importing the basic stuffs that can be produced in Ghana ? Can we begin to Export more items? We need to grow for ourselves, eat the portions we can, cann what we can’t and export as much as possible, to get foreign currencies.
Somentimes we have to deliberately cut down drastically on certain items to create a vacuum. Since life abhors a vacuum, the shortages will prompt the masses to produce to fill in, if people know that there is a market for a certain product, Ghanaians are so good to explore that market.
Nigeria did it when the then President, Obasanjo, in 2003, by a single statement, banned the importation of poultry and other poultry products into Nigeria.
The vacuum was created and in a short while many Nigerians entered the poultry industry. Not long after, the industry could save $200 million per year. President Obasanjo then said Nigerian should become a net Exporter of poultry products by 2005.
Is someone listening?
We can do much better as a nation, we are NOT building our nation and its getting much more expensive to construct Ghana. There should be prudent spending on the part of Government.
Our Ministerial size is just too large and a lot of our ministers are not doing much. We can combine so many of the ministries with one Minister who is the leader. At some point it has to be seen that we are building GHANA.
Its not about Debts cancellations. Its not about DEBT RESTRUCTURING, IT’S ABOUT LOCAL PRODUCTION AND EXPORTATION OF GHANAIAN GOODS and SERVICES.
GOD BLESS OUR HOME LAND GHANA AND MAKE OUR NATION GREAT AND STRONG
