“Big Government” Must Give Way To “Small Government” In Ghana

By Otchere Darko

*[This writer is just one of hundreds, and possibly thousands of Ghanaians who use the name “Otchere Darko”, either on its own, or in combination with other names. Some users spell this same name as “Okyere Darko”, while other users conjoin it with the help of a hyphen to become one single compound name, “Otchere-Darko” or “Okyere-Darko”, depending on which spelling-mode they choose. This writer, who has officially used this ‘simple name’ from his school days in the sixties into the seventies and continues to use it officially to this very day, attended the School of Administration of University of Ghana where he finally left in September 1977....... the year that students embarked on the UNIGOV demonstration. He has never before or after September 1977 been a student of the Ghana Law School. Up to the end of 1981, he worked as a senior public servant in, and for one of the mainstream Ministries in Ghana. He is not working, and has never worked for the Danquah Institute. He is currently not a member of NPP or any other party registered in Ghana. He is also not related to any practising Ghanaian politician with or without the same name. *May readers, please, take note of this exhaustive clarification and stop blaming, and sometimes even insulting another person for something that does not concern him.]

In this article, I am using the expression “big government” in the sense that it is commonly used in contemporary political literature...... which is: a reference to a situation where government expenditure in a country is seen to be getting bigger and bigger as a result of a policy of government to commit itself to “big government spending” for whatever reason, as opposed to committing itself to “small government spending”. And I am also using “small government” to mean the opposite situation...... which is: the situation where government limits itself, as a matter of policy, to “small government spending”. This article is not a justification for “capitalism”; neither is it an attack on “socialism”. *As a centrist who does not subscribe to either of the two doctrines, I am only campaigning against excessive government borrowing...... as I have been doing in many of my previous writings.

“Big government” means high public expenditure which, in its turn and as a matter of general rule, calls for either high taxation or high government borrowing, or both. There are two main reasons why this is bad. Firstly, as human beings we always want our governments to provide us with as many things as our minds and tastes can conceive, yet we hate paying high taxes and always find ways to oppose high taxation. We use tax avoidance, tax evasion, anti-tax demonstrations, or the ballot box to oppose high taxation by governments. Secondly, government borrowing, if not checked, tends to lead to growing public debt and loss of confidence in a country’s public finances in particular, and its economy generally. If human beings dislike and oppose high taxation, and if also high government borrowing is generally harmful to a country’s future, then it makes sense for governments to avoid becoming “big”, and risk putting their countries in such a precarious situation. *The need for governments to be “small” is relevant to Ghana and other developing countries, just as it is relevant to USA and other developed countries that are going through debt crises now. NDC and NPP should accordingly commit themselves to creating “small governments” instead of the “big governments” they have always been running for reasons best to themselves.

All governments have a duty to create or provide within their countries social amenities and services, public utilities, national security, law and other, justice, education, health, economic growth, employment, general prosperity, etc. However, governments do not at any time have to attempt to create or provide all these things by themselves. The private sector is one other, and often better way by which governments can, and must create and provide the things that nations need to make available in their countries to make them safe, progressive, and socio-economically satisfying. Talks about “political direction” in Ghana, in my opinion, should always boil down to the need for the government or parties to decide and choose which “size of government expenditure”, relative to the size of Ghana’s GDP or wealth-creation, should be seen as prudent and conducive for the nation’s socio-economic and political wellbeing that does not create either (1) the need for the government to resort to high taxation that burdens Ghanaian taxpayers and force investors to relocate their investment activities and plans or (2) the need for the government to resort to extensive borrowing, domestic or external, that leads to mounting public debt that puts Ghana’s economic and sovereign future at a risk.

This prudent and conducive “size of government expenditure” relative to GDP is the kind of “small government” that I am recommending to NDC and NPP, the only two parties that can form governments in Ghana in the foreseeable future, in my opinion and judging by current political arithmetic which excludes the phenomenon of “luck”. *“Small government” means a government that limits itself to the barest socio-economic necessities that it can afford to finance without burdening its current and future citizens. *“Small government” means a government that cuts down on appointed and other public officials and eliminates the duplication of roles in government circles so as to achieve efficient use of taxpayers’ money. *“Small government” also means that government must halt the habit whereby several but unnecessary ministers, pro-government MPs and party “nonentities” follow the President everywhere he goes inside the country at the cost of the taxpayers. *“Small government” means cutting down on the size of diplomatic missions abroad, by removing embassies located in small and economically unimportant countries and placing the diplomatic care in these less important countries under other missions that serve whole regions. *“Small government” means that government should abandon the handling of, and rather encourage private investors to handle projects that are necessary for national development, but which the government cannot finance unless it borrows. Housing, schools, roads, railway renovations and extensions, air-transportation, other infrastructural projects, oil refineries, agricultural projects, other commercial projects, etc, can all be handled by the private sector. Government should use tax incentives, lessening of bureaucracy in governmental and regulatory procedures, transparent and incorruptible public administration, creation of friendly business environment, non-demonisation of private investors, etc, to entice both Ghanaian and foreign investors to invest in the needed areas that cannot, and must not be financed through borrowing by government. *“Small government” also means a government that does not waste needed financial resources to pay high remunerations to its current members and former government officials, when there are several national needs that are crying for attention. *“Above all, “small government” means government should encourage companies and financial institutions in rich foreign countries that generously lend monies to poor countries to come to Ghana and invest directly in specific commercially viable projects, such as the renovation, modernisation and extension of our railway system, the smelting of our bauxite to produce aluminium, etc...... direct investments that create profits for those foreign investors while, concurrently, they particularly create employment for Ghanaian youth and help our economy to grow generally....... rather than government asking for and accepting foreign loans that get “siphoned off through elbow greasing”, even though they at the same time conscript and consign Ghana to perpetual indebtedness and economic bondage *“Big government” today has become seen in contemporary economic thinking as enigmatic, suicidal and unpopular; and should, therefore, be avoided by any Ghanaian government, be it NDC or NPP. *Even China, the country that describes itself as “communist” but which is the largest buyer of government bonds and other debt instruments of capitalist America, recently advised the government of America, the biggest economy in the world, to control its borrowing. *Ghana government should borrow a leaf from this recent “clever” Chinese advice to America, and let our nation cut its coat according to the size of its cloth by ending our addiction to borrowing...... including our infatuation to loans from the ever-ready-to-lend “new” China. *[My campaign against government borrowing in Ghana continues unabated. Expect more in future!]

Source: Otchere Darko [Personal Political Views].