Ghana Says We're Not No. 9! Not Even Close

Daniel Fisher is a senior editor at Forbes.

Our feature on the world's worst economies has caused quite a stir in Ghana, the West African nation that ranked 9th from the bottom. As this article in All-Africa.com puts it, some people think the ranking was part of a "well-planned attack" by "right-wing media" in retaliation for Ghana's refusal to transfer valuable offshore oil leases from Dallas oil companyKosmos Energy to ExxonMobil. For the record, offshore oil leases had nothing to do with Ghana's ranking, and the revenue from all that oil will probably bounce the country out of the bottom 10 if we do a similar survey in the future. And we called both the Ghanian Embassy and consular offices before publication and got no response. Today, however, we received this letter from Ghana's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and it lays the bullish case for Ghana's economy. It's well-documented, cogent and doesn't make any mention of dark conspiracies. Instead, it describes how Ghana's economy has improved since 2008, when most of the data for our worst economies list was compiled.

Ghana is not "struggling to pay its bills," the ministry says, and it has whacked its trade deficit in half since 2008 to $2.2 billion. Also per-capita gross domestic product, a key metric in our survey, rose in Ghanian dollar and real (inflation-adjusted) terms from 2008 and 2009 even if it fell in U.S. dollar terms, the ministry reports. Since then the Ghanian dollar has appreciated 7% against the U.S. dollar, a sign, the ministry says, of good fiscal management. Relative to the U.S., that's a possibility.

One of the biggest disputes is over the Valco aluminum refinery, which we say has been idled because the country is diverting electricity from Africa's biggest hydroelectric dam. The electricity isn't being diverted, Ghana says; there's not enough to go around because water levels in Volta Lake are too low. Given the "ridiculous" prices Valco pays for electricity, the ministry says, it makes no sense to divert electrons from consumers to produce aluminum ingots for the world market. Fair enough. We'd hate to confuse a drought with mismanagement.

And if Ghana keeps on this fiscal course, it will exit the Bottom 10 forever. Best of luck.