'We are being exploited!' – Dr Kofi Amoah on Ghana’s free market policy

Astute businessman and economist, Dr Kofi Amoah, says Ghana cannot and should not continue to allow the free entry of goods into its market when it has very little to compete with.

He adds that for now, the protectionist approach is key for a country like Ghana until such a time it can equally compete by adding value to its many raw materials that are bought for cheap by more advanced economies.

Sharing his views on Twitter, Dr Amoah proclaimed, “African countries, thinking they’re part of the capitalist system, allowing the free entry of goods into their markets with nothing to compete with, at home or abroad ARE BEING EXPLOITED!

Fleshing out his point, Dr Amoah told GhanaWeb that the time has come for Ghana to define and determine the type of ‘development philosophy and economic architecture’ it wants to adopt.

In the view of Dr Amoah, the lack of clarity on the above subject is at the core of the economic malaise the country is currently facing.

Dr Amoah believes that this development philosophy and economic architecture conversation should be paramount in the decision of who and which party leads the country ahead of the 2024 General Elections.

He furthered that the capitalist system and its ideology which mandates that there should be the free entry of goods from and into each member’s territory does not bode well for Ghana and many developing countries.

Read Dr Amoah’s opinion on the subject of free trade

At the core of Ghana and Africa’s struggles for progress in the 21st Century is the issue of which economic ideology and programs would be best suited considering the existing global economic structure and Africa’s history with colonialism and exploitation

Africa exports primarily raw materials, minerals unprocessed and taken for cheap.

Africa imports most of her critical items for survival and modern-day living, ie medicines, vehicles, clothing, home goods and practically all of her manufactured products.

The capitalist system and its ideology mandate that there should be free entry of goods from and into each member’s territory.

China, in her initial stages of development, knowing it didn’t have much to compete with and didn’t want her domestic market to be swamped with imports of higher quality and cheaper prices … a situation which acts to kill fledgling local startups… elected not to join the WTO until she was ready.

This protected China’s internal market for local producers, initially with lower-quality products. Through a “learning-by-doing” gradualist approach, the Chinese became very efficient in quality with low prices before joining the WTO to open her borders and trade with the rich, advanced countries

Smart China took over mega global industries with their home-grown manufacturing prowess and has now risen to the Number 2 spot on the list of the large economies of the world, expected to become No 1 within a decade or less!!

Poor, post-colonial Africa, with nothing to compete with but listening to the advice of her “colonial masters”, sometimes with sweeteners, to sign trade pacts that are designed to give access to the products of Western manufacturers whilst assuring them continuous and unbridled access to the indispensable raw materials needed for their factories at bottom cheap prices joined the WTO and became dumping ground for the products of its “wise” members.

As China grew richer and richer with their smart policies of centralized economic development planning, Africa grew poorer and poorer, indebted to the West for unpayable sums, huge unemployment, vast idle fertile lands, her ports lined with shiploads of imported grains, meat products and discarded clothing, with her Parliaments and Execute branches of governance busy perfecting the strictures of “democracy”, the type that have you borrowing so much to pay for consumption but never production and to lead you nowhere of succor but to the gallows of the global superintendent of Third World economies, the IMF

Ghana, the contrived poster child of democracy by the West, has gone to the IMF 14 times to be re-schooled in how to be a ‘good boy’ with conditionalities and assurances for the continuous rape of our resources at bottom prices.

The next upcoming elections for all African countries but especially for Ghana must have on the ballot “The type of development philosophy and economic architecture” Africa must adopt to help finally unfree ourselves from the shackles of what Dr Kwame Nkrumah aptly called NEO-COLONIALISM and IMPERIALISM.

We must face this squarely to prevent another century of Africa’s exploitation.

Whether we like it or not, we have become the laughing stock of the world in the 21st Century when almost all regions of the world have figured out the simplicity of development and progress.

Just like the Science for technology for building motor cars are now known, tested and emulatable … the methods for organizing and managing post-colonial nations to develop and progress are also well known, tested and emulatable

Can Africa rise up from her own bootstraps as other former colonial countries have done

Or must we not then face the big question we hate to hear:

ARE AFRICANS INFERIOR?

I personally think not but it’s time to show it, not so much to others, but to our own selves
LETS DO IT!
~ Citizen Kofi