What Are their Business Plans For Ghana? (Part II)

What Are their Business Plans For Ghana? (Part II)

By Bright B. Simons & Franklin Cudjoe



As Ghana prepares for general elections on December 7 2008, IMANI, one of Ghana's truly independent think-tanks has successfully steered media attention away from boring political campaign promises to asking the real question- What is the financial outlay for achieving the promises politicians keep running their mouths on? IMANI's Development Director, Bright Simons, has featured on major Ghanaian media with politicians discussing the issue.

The second part of this media campaign can be read here

What Are Their Business Plans for Ghana? Part I

By Bright Simons & Franklin Cudjoe

The question explicit in the title of this article is directed at the political parties aspiring to govern this country.

We are by no means ignorant of the fact that nations are infinitely more complex than businesses. Nor are we by 'business plan' referring to those multi-year 'development plans' favoured by certain 'political visionaries' ONCE THEY ARE IN POWER.

We use 'business plan' generically to refer to any espousal of a plan of action that also contains some financial figures by means of which the viability of the plan in question can be evaluated.
In the context of the political parties we are addressing, we are inquiring whether their MANIFESTOES, in their currently released or about to be released forms, are viable plans of actions.

You will appreciate our point better after you have read the underlisted 'promises' made
to the electorate by the various political parties vying for our votes:

-Provide free secondary education to all pupils in an extension of the current FCUBE program.
-Provide free tertiary tuition to all qualified students.
-Provide free electricity to the masses by means of 'permanent magnets'.
-'Grow' donkeys in sufficient numbers to transform the agricultural capacity of the North, in an integrated pastoral system in which the donkeys provide both free 'fertilizer' and mechanization-substitutes.
-Mobilise internal resources to the tune of $840 billion, up from the current ~$7 billion. On a comparative basis, this means Ghana's GDP during the tenure of this party will be ~$2 trillion, making the country the 5th wealthiest in the world – richer than the UK and France.
-Construct a pipeline from the newly discovered Western offshore oil fields to the North as part of an integrated petroleum complex. Figures from comparative endeavours elsewhere in the world (taking into account the geographical and industry context in Ghana) suggests a project outlay of 5 to 8 billion dollars (definitely greater than the current combined national expenditure).

What we find worrying is that when journalists choose to scrutinize these plans, even in the superficial manner they usually adopt, they ask a generic 'how will you do it' question, thus providing enormous room for politicians to ramble long-winded strategies containing even lesser content than the original statement of purpose.

It is not sufficient for a political party to 'cost' the individual initiatives they are proposing, something most of them are not even bothering to do anyway. They must produce a COMPLETE pro-forma budget which demonstrates what the opportunity cost for each initiative will be by showing the source of budgetary receipts alongside the inventory of expenses. A manifesto without such a pro-forma budget cannot suffice as a proper statement of intent.

Nearly all political schemes are feasible in a certain context. The true measure of feasibility comes when all the schemes are hung together and their costs summed up against projected inflows of resources to determine whether the overall political program is viable or not.
It may be entirely logical to argue for the entire northern corridor to be turned into an irrigation belt in order to feed a proposed cereal industry, but the question is whether in the inevitable trade-off that must occur for that to happen we are happy to sacrifice low public debt, NHIS concessions or the school feeding program in view of the expected levels of tax gain and donor aid.

It is true that not all our compatriots are capable of following detailed assessments of political programs, and that only a few even bother to read manifestoes. But that is why the Media exists. That is why, like most other societies, an academic elite subsists on the backbreaking labour of manual workers and other economic producers. It is the duty of such to transmit sophisticated analyses in forms accessible to the general population. But the quality of what they convey will, obviously, be coloured by the substance of what they receive from politicians.

Our argument is further that calls for an 'issues-based' electioneering campaign are empty demands unless we place a greater emphasis on improving the quality of manifestoes as actionable statements of intent. What constitutes an 'issue' is ultimately a subjective decision over which reasonable people can disagree.

Objective politicking, on the other hand, cannot proceed in the absence of some form of figure-based analysis and commentary.
We call on the Media and Civil Society institutions in this country to join us in a loud demand for all political parties to supply pro-forma statements of national accounts for, at least, their first term in office alongside, and correspondent with, their manifestoes.

Bright B. Simons & Franklin Cudjoe are affiliates of IMANI and www.AfricanLiberty.org

UN Climate Plans vs. The Poor

UN Climate Plans vs. The Poor

By Franklin Cudjoe & Bright Simons

Accra: -- Despite the breakdown of UN climate-change talks in Bali last December, the same themes were still being pushed at last week's meeting in Ghana--but now developing countries have begun to question the effects on the world's poorest. Read more here

Aid-Bashing to Go High-Fashion in Accra

Aid-Bashing to Go High-Fashion in Accra

Bright B. Simons & Franklin Cudjoe

Six weeks from now, a conference is supposed to take place in the West African country of Ghana that its organizers and participants claim will transform the aid process for the better.
But don't be fooled by the slogans and slick marketing, the Aid industry has no intention of changing its game, and its worst critics are in actual fact its best friends.

Read More

Thickheadedness on African debt

Thickheadedness on African debt

By Franklin Cudjoe, ACCRA, GhanaTuesday, July 8, 2008

Special to The Japan Times
ACCRA, Ghana

"For too long, ordinary Africans have struggled to get ahead because ofpoor governance, corruption and a general lack of economic freedom; the G8would only perpetuate these policies with its well-intentioned, yetill-practiced policies on debt forgiveness."

Visit The Japan Times to read full article

Anti-Foreign Aid converts in Spain

Anti-Foreign Aid converts in Spain


I was in Madrid as a guest of the Regional Governmnet of Madrid.
I was spoke on a range of development issues, especially aid and delivery of public services.
Read full story

Should poor governments be allowed to break drug patents for humanitarian reasons?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

By Franklin Cudjoe

http://en.afrik.com/article13423.html

ACCRA, Ghana -- Should poor governments be allowed to break drug patents for humanitarian reasons?

That question is front-and-center at a major public health conference sponsored by the World Health Organization that started on 28 April in Geneva.

Top-notch policy experts from around the world have gathered to make formal policy recommendations about patents to Third World governments struggling with disease. Many will claim that patents allow Western drug companies to keep drug prices artificially high, and that patent-breaking is a cheap and easy way to get poor patients the drugs they need.

They're wrong on both counts.

For starters, the drugs needed in the developing world aren't patent protected. A 2004 study published in the journal Health Affairs showed that less than 2 percent of the 319 prescription drugs on the WHO's Model List of Essential Medicines are actually under patent.

What patients in the Third World need aren't patent-busting bureaucrats, but more roads, doctors, hospitals, nutritious food, and good sanitation. When roads are in disrepair, it can be particularly difficult to reach rural populations, where disease burden is highest. In places with no electricity, temperature-sensitive pills often go bad before anyone can benefit from them. Refrigerated Coca-Cola vans have been shipping polio vaccines to the hinterlands of Cameroon, because most roads are unmotorable.

Even if roads were available and medicines were donated, they must be prescribed by qualified medical staff. Patients will also need good drinking water and a good meal to enhance recovery from disease. However, the doctor-patient ratio is abysmally low and close to 60 percent of Africans do not have access to good sanitation and many subsist on less than a dollar a day.

Patents are actually a critical part of the solution. They protect the financial incentives that drive pharmaceutical companies to create innovative medications in the first place.

It takes an average of US$800 million and 10-15 years to bring a new drug to the market. Patents ensure that pharmaceutical companies can recoup that enormous investment.

If countries start breaking patents, though, firms lose out on sales. And they're less able to finance the development of new cures. That's a blow to the public health efforts of all countries, rich and poor. Ghana's health Minister told me that he fails to see how people could hold antagonistic positions against pharmaceutical companies, because in his own words "if drugs are being made, then people must be sick somewhere-it is not for charity".
Poor patent enforcement also gives rise to potentially harmful copycats.

The generic pharmaceuticals manufactured in the developing world often don't comply with international safety regulations. Low-quality and counterfeit drugs are common.

The WHO estimates that 10 percent of the world's drugs are counterfeit. Patent-theft is making the problem worse.

It's also important to realize that drug companies are not as blindly self-serving as many anti-patent groups portray them to be. Global pharmaceutical companies have worked for years with groups like the WHO and the UN Children's Fund to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases plaguing the developing world.

Just a few months ago, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck donated $450 million in medicines to Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. These sorts of philanthropic efforts are less likely if drug companies start struggling just to break even.

Many important steps need to be to taken to improve medical care in the Third World. Despite what the health activists are saying, stealing drug patents and stifling the creation of life-saving medicines is not one of them. It seems that a sensible route to take would be dialogue with pharmaceutical companies for differential pricing for developing world markets while making every effort to improve the well being of citizens. Open, decentralized and transparent government, lower trade tariffs, free speech, the rule of law, relaxed business entry and exit rules, property rights, and freedom to contract and freedom from contract would be important to help poor citizens buy their own health insurance against diseases.

Franklin Cudjoe is executive director of IMANI Center for Policy and Education, a think-tank located in Accra, Ghana. He spoke at the IGWG conference in Geneva on 28-29 April, 2008.

IMANI Named only African Think Tank to win $100,000 Award

The Atlas Economic Research Foundation announced that IMANI Center for Policy and Education (Accra, Ghana) is the only African think tank among its first class of recipients of Dorian & Antony Fisher Venture Grants.

More than 180 think tanks competed for the grants in this program, but only nine were selected to receive up to $100,000 from Atlas over the next three years:

· Alternate Solutions Institute (Lahore, Pakistan)

· Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

(Kentucky,USA)

· Canadian Constitution Foundation (Calgary,Canada)

· Cathay Institute for Public Affairs (Beijing, China)

. Fundación Ecuador Libre (Guayaquil, Ecuador)

· Fundación F. A. von Hayek (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

· IMANI: Center for Policy and Education (Accra, Ghana)

· Istituto Bruno Leoni (Turin, Italy)

· New Economic School (Tbilisi, Georgia)

Franklin Cudjoe, the founding director of IMANI Center for Policy and Education, remarked: "Receiving this grant from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation is another great vindication of the important work IMANI began 3 years ago. We are determined to see that public policy debate in Ghana and West Africa involve students who should be informed by principled, non-partisan viewpoints."

Atlas established the Fisher Venture Grants program in January 2008 to recognize and assist think tanks that represent "great investments" for the future. Grantees are younger institutes with a track record that suggests a strong potential for improving the climate of ideas among their target audience.

Alejandro A. Chafuen, Atlas's President & CEO remarked, "Independent think tanks can play a crucial role to ensure that public policy debates are not dominated by government insiders.

The Cathay Institute in China is playing an important role by educating people about the virtues of limiting government, so that individual initiative and free enterprise can flourish." The Fisher Venture Grant program honors the memory of Atlas's late founders, Sir Antony Fisher and his wife Dorian.

The couple established the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, because they believed that investments in emerging think tanks could be extremely cost-effective, especially when complimented with mentoring to further improve those think tanks' prospects for long-term success.

For this reason, Atlas structured the Dorian and Antony Fisher Venture Grants program to provide funding to think tanks over a three-year term, during which time Atlas will be in frequent contact to help develop plans and to monitor performance. Half of the grant is structured as a "matching program," providing strong incentives for think tanks to attract new local supporters for their important work.

IMANI was chosen from scores of think tanks (180)in the Atlas network because of:

.Its commitment to ethical behaviuor and civil discourse

.Its commitment to the principles of a free society:individualliberty,free enterpreise,and rule of law under a limited government.

.Your appllication, which showed elements of a successful business plan. That is an understanding of your market,and how to serve it while fulfilling your mission and building your organization's capacities

.We have been impressed by your success in developing and executing seminars to teach young people about classical liberal ideas. we see tremendous potential in your ability to identify mentor and cultivate new leaders in West Africa.

.Our belief in you, Franklin, as an effective leader who will be able to grow IMANI into an institution that will have long lasting impact in Ghana.

Founded in the United States in 1981, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (www.atlasUSA.org) develops and strengthens a worldwide network of independent think tanks.

Founded in late 2004, IMANI is an African based nonprofit, non-government organization dedicated to educating society on the benefits of a free economy and fostering public awareness of important policy issues concerning business, government and civil society. Through seminars, publications and articles, IMANI and its international partners (primarily AfricanLiberty.org) seek to promote enlightened inquiry based on sound values and scholarship.

In Praise of Global Capitlaism

The ongoing United Nations Conference on Trade and Globalisation in Ghana has given free reign to misguided activist NGOs and many African leaders to demonise globalisation for many of Africa's home grown problems.

AfricanLiberty.org Editor speaks in favour of greater openness while admonishing African leaders to give attention to inhibiting local barriers to trade and development. Franklin was a guest on Ghana's widely syndicated and best Talk Radio, Choice FM.

Please listen to the interview here

TV AFRICA- on the Global Food Crisis

AfricanLiberty.org Editor, Franklin Cudjoe speaks to TV Africa about the global surge in food inflation, effects and how to arrest the situation. AfricanLiberty.org columnnist and IMANI's Development Director, Bright Simons speaks on the same subject in Akan (Ghana's predominant language) on TV Africa.

Please listen to the 15-minute interview here..

Defining the Ground Rules for Political Party Activities

Africa is fast gaining notoriety for running flawed elections. Cameroun, Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe have exhibited the most atrocious violations of citizen's right to freely choose who should direct their desires. Many countries on the continent are awaiting their fate as elections are planned for the end of 2008. Ghana, an oasis of peace and tranquility is one such country. Are Ghanaians waiting for the ominous nemesis visited upon by leaders of the aforementoned countries? Or would Ghanaians warn their presidential hopefuls to literally, store water to put out their potential burning beards?

AfricanLiberty.org editor and IMANI's Executive Director, Franklin Cudjoe speaks again to TV Africa's host of "Matters Arising", Dr. Niyi Bi Alarbi, one time Speech Writer of Ghana's Current President. The other discussant is the Director of Public Affiars of the National Council on Civic Education. This is the fourth TV Africa apearance in three weeks.

Also, AfricanLiberty.org contributor and IMANI's Director of Development, Bright Simons continues to urge civil discourse over political invectives on Ghana's most popular local language programme, "OMAN YI MU NSEM"( translated, National Issues). This is the third TV Africa appearance in one month.

Please listen to audio here.

Party Political Funding

The Institute of Economic Affairs in GHANA (not the UK) is seeking to push a bill in Parliament to ask ordinary and overburdened Ghanaians to contribute 2.5% of Value Added Tax to support Political Parties in Ghana. 2.5% VAT is what Ghanaians pay into the National Health Insurance fund and 2.5% VAT is again what we pay into the Ghana Education Trust Fund.

AfricanLiberty.org editor, Franklin Cudjoe and other civil society groups feel its immoral to ask Ghanaians, who correctly perceive Politicans as self-serving to give them free money.

AfricanLiberty.org Editor, Franklin Cudjoe in the second of two television interviews discusses political party funding with Ghana's Ruling government's spokesperson on Social Services, Mr. Amponsah Bediako and the main opposition party (National Democratic Congresss) Deputy General Secretary, Mr. Baba Jamal.

Please listen to audio here,

Global Food Crisis- TV Interview

AfricanLiberty.org editor, Franklin Cudjoe speaks his mind on public financing of political parties. Please listen to this short interview on Ghana's TV Africa, viewed in 7 regions of Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast and Togo.

Please listen to the interview here

The Foundations of a Free Society

AfricanLiberty.org Editor, Franklin Cudjoe spoke to 55 members of the Students in Free Enterprise chapter of the Institute of Professional Studies in Ghana. The talk was on the foundations of a free society. The talk begins a series of campus visitations to promote the work of AfricanLiberty.org and IMANI.

Please see pictures of the event here.

Also listen to audio here.

February, March 2008- Been Really Busy and will be

1. In keeping with the need to effectively disseminate our noble ideas offreedom and prosperity, IMANI explained to a section of the Ghanaian mediawhy property right is the midwife of economic development. IMANI on 4 March 2008 launched the 2008 International Property RightsIndex with Twelve 12 media houses (3 radio and 9 print media) represented.The state-owned radio, Radio Ghana, and the state-owned newspaper, theGhanaian Times were very well represented. So was Ghana's top financial newspaper, the Business and Financial Times. We will see their reports soon. Please listen to the hour-long discussion during the launch Here

Also listen to a Top Radio news item today on the launch Here Your comments are appreciated.


2. Dear Friends, So, on February 21 2008, IMANI brought together 102 delegates to discuss a draft policy on alcohol for Ghana-because Ghana has no policy on alcohol.Two earlier workshops brought together 150 delegates. Last Thursday'sdelegates included, highly placed representatives from varied Ministries,
Departments and Agencies of the Ghanaian government, Australian and Namibiangovernment officials as well as corporate directors of alcoholic beveragecompanies from Ghana and South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, U.K and theU.S.A who came flew in learn from the Ghana/IMANI experience. Please listen to Franklin's welcome remarks Here and Listen totwo very short radio interviews on the alcohol workshop Here Please see some photos from the event Here .

And oh, we continue to be the toast of the BBC as evidenced in an interview I granted them yesterday on illegal migration and recently on President Bush' Africa tour




3. AfricanLiberty.org and IMANI are on a roll in the Ghanaian media. We are in stand by mode at every turn of President Bush' visit to givecommentaries. IMANI's Director of Development, Bright Simons and its
Executive Director, Franklin Cudjoe are granting interviews to the BBC, JoyFM, CITI FM, SKY FM and TV AFRICA. Hopefully Ghanaians on this forumwatched our TV Africa interview this morning. I will be on TV Africa thisevening from 10:00pm discussing Bush's visit. We will share with you audioand video we blinks to some of these interviews, but meanwhile here is aview from one of IMANI's friend and Presidential hopeful, Dr. ArthurKobina Kennedy who says "President Bush Deserves Better" Please enjoy reading Dr Kennedy's article by visiting AfricanLiberty.org

4. On 19th February, Franklin discussed Bush's visit on Ghana's second best private radio station, CITI FM. His co-discussants were Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah, Ghana's former Ambassador to the United States and Current CEO of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson, An Economist and Dr. Yao Graham, Ghanaian Director of Third World Network. Please listen to entire interview. Please listen to the entire interview Here

5. Franklin Cudjoe, Executive Director of IMANI and Editor of AfricanLiberty.org org spoke to the BBC World Service on President Bush's on going visit to Africa yesterday.
Please listen to the entire segment Here



6. Listen to audio discussion between IMANI's Director and Ghana's Deputy Minister for Manpower, Youth and Employment and a Director of a socialist organization on government’s plan to make direct cash transfers to people it solely identifies as poor.
Radio discussion here

IMANI Director's Article forms basis for Radio discussion with Government

At IMANI, we believe engaging local governments on thorny issues such as the one reported above makes real impact. We have engaged the Ministries of Health, Trade and Communication in the past with great results. On February 21, 2008, IMANI will present a draft national alcohol policy to 80 delegates and the Ministries of Health, Trade, Communication, Transport, and numerous NGOs.

So amidst the joy of fatherhood, I was busy responding to national duties.

After many Ghanaians commented on the article below, the Ghanaian Government’s main state-owned radio station with syndicating alliances in all ten regions of Ghana used the article for its main discussions yesterday. The discussants were the Hon. Deputy Minister for Manpower, Youth and Employment, Franklin Cudjoe ( IMANI Director and AfricanLiberty.org Editor) and Dr. Steve Manteau who is communication director for ISODEC, a socialist NGO.

Enjoy the 102 minute discussion by clicking on this audio link . Apart from the first 45 seconds, the entire audio link is fine.

The article is here, and was published in the State-owned Ghanaian Daily Graphic on Monday, February 4, 2008

Also carried in the The New Times in Rwanda and All Africa.com

Chad Implodes- One more reason why the African Union is a failure!

Chad Implodes- One more reason why the African Union is a failure!

Whilst tension in Kenya keeps simmering, another unattended African putrefied sore has been exposed- Chad. Haven been kept dirt poor for almost two decades by strong man Idris Deby, Chadians had waited for the day he will be forced out of power as their faith in democratic elections had long waned.

Chad’s colonial masters, the French, had dabbled in local politics with unflinching support for Mr Deby whilst they benefited from subsidized oil resources. But Sudan has been fighting a proxy war in Chad in revenge for alleged Chadian support for anti-Khartoum elements.

So what will the African Union do?

The newly elected AU chairman, Tanzanian Jakaya Kikwete had indeed received a rousing welcome, the African leader’s way. For now he can show his bravado by promising to ostracize a rebel-led government. But he has already failed even before the rebels came to power. With his blessings, the AU has appointed a two man mediation team to be led by Congo’s Dennis Sassou Nguesso, himself a graduated petty tyrant with lots of oil cash stashed away in foreign banks and the controversial Libyan dictator Brother Muama Ghadaffi

However, Ghadaffi has accepted the limitation of the AU to own up to their problems. He seems to be echoing the much publicized miserly appeal of the 54-nation group to the European Union to provide helicopters for its poorly resourced troops in Dafur, while its leaders ride in bullet proof gold-plated Mercedes benz.

Libya can buy fighter helicopters for the AU, but it would be on Muammar Gaddafi terms- his lofty ideals of African unity but nothing of any use on the real disasters of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Darfur, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

As I argued in an article recently, failures such as corruption and election-rigging do not even feature on the agenda of the AU any time they meet--although these remain the real unifying features of Africa.

“Above all, there was not a whisper about property rights, the rule of law and market freedoms that would allow Africans to emulate the growth of Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea--which were as poor as we were at independence in the 1960s. Even the growth records of South Africa, Mauritius and Botswana are ignored as being somehow exceptional instead of being acknowledged as the direct result of sound economic policies.”

Right now, we can only hope against hope for Kenya and Chad.

Cudjoe v. Clooney ,courtesy the venerable Tom Palmer

February 1, 2008

Cudjoe v. Clooney

My friend and colleague Franklin Cudjoe, the leader of the IMANI think tank in Ghana and editor of the joint IMANI/Cato project AfricanLiberty.org, takes on the appointment of George Clooney as a “peace ambassador” in Africa in a debate with a “Friend of the Earth.” The debate is in the last quarter of this BBC segment.


Many thanks, Tom.

UPDATE: It turns out the link to the debate on this BBC segment had expired, but my responses were not different from my Daily Telegraph article on Rock Star Economics"

Reactions to my article from confused socialists

African libertarians need to revisit their classics..

January 31, 2008
Franklin Cudjoe, editor of African Liberty, a CATO-sponsored african libertarian platform offers us yet another of those convulted long essays mixing up a bunch of different arguments in order to attack some government policy. The policy, a plan to directly give $8 to $15 every month to the poorest Ghaneans, is described as a “centrally-plannest waste”.

See, as far as I know, the libertarian critic of central planning is that markets, the sum of individual decisions, are the most efficient way to allocate ressources. And that’s why, if there has to be social policy, poverty-alleviation measures, direct cash transfers are usually prefered to more market-disrupting measures.

School vouchers, for instance, are considered a better way to provide education to the poorest than public schools. After all giving vouchers or money directly to the poor is trusting individuals to make their own decisions instead of governments inefficiently allocating ressources. That’s why I’m confused when I read:

"How much of all the money sourced above and the one for merry-making every other month will go into agricultural reforms? Would it ensure secure land tenure for farmers to enhance large scale production? Train agric extension officers to advise farmers on best farming practices, provide soft loans, reduced prices of agricultural inputs, support infrastructure to facilitate storage and movement of goods, so that our energetic rural youth will not flock to the cities in search of absentee jobs?"

My guess is not much. But then again, that’s because I’m one of those socialist/collectivists/statists Cudjoe is supposed to rant about. One who think that government intervention, via infrastructure, via education, via fertilizer subsidies, would work faster and may be better than market-based allocation. However if you value freedom, liberty and all that, why would one be concerned about how the money is used. And why would one think the energic rural youth would flock to the cities and not use their cash to buy agricultural inputs, build storage facilities, roads or invest in training ? Isn’t that the magic of the market ?

So yeah, I’m disappointed. Can’t the western libertarian network find smarter and more principled writers and thinkers to promote their cause in Africa ? May be, we’d get some interesting debates and may be one or two good policy initiatives could be squeezed out of it.

PS: to be fair, most of the article is dedicated to describing make-work schemes, utilities subsidies and other programs that are more deserving of libertarian attack but I did call it a “convulted long essay mixing up a bunch of different arguments” for a reason.


One Response to “African libertarians need to revisit their classics..”

Mbelolo Says: January 31, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Cudjoe has not read his Milton Friedman, perhaps. See http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text88_p.html


Franklin Cudjoe Says: February 1, 2008 at 12:08 am
Thanks for taking time to read my “convulutedlong essay”. You actually just made it to the list of those disoriented propagandists.

You confused your socialist dimented position because you failed to take into consideration all the 12 preceding paragraphs to your quote. You would have been a bad student of English summary if you were in a serious class.

“How much of all the money sourced above and the one for merry-making every other month will go into agricultural reforms? Would it ensure secure land tenure for farmers to enhance large scale production?, train agric extension officers to advise farmers on best farming practices, provide soft loans, reduced prices of agricultural inputs, support infrastructure to facilitate storage and movement of goods, so that our energetic rural youth will not flock to the cities in search of absentee jobs?.”

You said “However if you value freedom, liberty and all that, why would one be concerned about how the money is used. And why would one think the energic rural youth would flock to the cities and not use their cash to buy agricultural inputs, build storage facilities, roads or invest in training ? Isn’t that the magic of the market ?”

I’m sorry, but freedom and liberty does not give any one the excuse to make foolish decisions especially when the money to be freely distributed here is borrowed in a people’s name and without any serious baseline data or indeed any reasonable criteria to select the poor people? Would it go to ohousehold heads? Come on, even my illiterate grand mum laughed at the suggestion as she grimaced ” yeah, there are a lot of drunks who will just spend the money on booze”.

See, its just simplistic to argument that rural folks will accumulate $8 to $15 every two months to invest in agriculture, when they do not even own the land on which they will attempt to farm, or even if they did, would they be able to cart their peasantry produce to the markets since many roads are just filled with pot holes.

Do you appreciate the value of decentralized decision making at all? You attempt to be smart by suggesting school vouchers. Thats okay, but these so called collectivist/socialist thinkers, including those who advised government knew of vouchers anyway. But then the real reason as many Ghanaians who are the legitimate assessors of this useless policy know it is an elctoral gimmick as we have crucial votes this year.

Let me reiterate again thatthe market is a process and bound to make mistakes. Even that we expect sensible regulations from government. But seriously, putting all the isms aside, do you seriously think this is the best way out? Aba?? just for three years?? and then what? the beneficiaries ceases to exist? even you don’t expect your father to live forever. We must be clear not to confuse philathropy with serious development issues. You see we in Ghana even under socialist administrations have seen the unitended consequences fo these utopian ideals and left many worse than they were before.

Come to Ghana and I will take you around and ask simple villagers about how they ababdoned their dremas becasue fo governmnet free money and what happened to them later. A stranger has wide eyes in deed!!!

Franklin Cudjoe Says: February 1, 2008 at 12:18 am
Sounds like a South African forum here. Oh I see, are you guys the ones exacting the eveils of apartheid with BEE? I now understand.

See, Mbelolo, I do not need to be a scholar of Friedman, Hayek or Adam Smith to come to terms with a stupid idea such as getting free money from government when I know it is indeed not free money but will come back as an albastross around our necks - I know it will make me dull, and when I don’t get any longer, i become a social misfit, drunk and produce vengeful street urchins who say in South Africa could add to the crime wave there. We in Ghana are trying to avoid such hell!


aflakete Says: February 1, 2008 at 3:37 am
“You confused your socialist dimented position because you failed to take into consideration all the 12 preceding paragraphs to your quote.”

No, not really. I ignored those 12 paragraphs because they were about other policies. A bit of focus from you guys would be nice for a change.
As far as the rest of what you said, well, it seems you don’t get what confused me. Do you think poverty alleviation and social policy should be done via direct government intervention ? Do you think this is the worse idea they came up with ? Worse than import substitution plans ? Worse than roads to nowhere ? Worse than building a dam with the hopes of jump-starting industrialisation ? Worse than industrial policy ? Worse than price controls and single-product subsidies ?

Mbelolo Says: February 1, 2008 at 3:53 am

Mr. Cudjoe, direct cash transfer is a concept with a respectable libertarian history, as discussed in the article I linked. For one example, Milton Friedman advocated a negative income tax, which would give money to those below a poverty threshhold.
You may wish to disagree with Hayek and Friedman on the subject, that’s certainly fine, but an acknowledgement of the libertarian history of the concept is in order.

Direct Cash for the Poor

Last Tuesday, Ghana's Minister for Employment and Manpower Development, Nana Akomea said a total US$ 20million has been earmarked to be disbursed to the country's poor. Each person or group would receive between $8 and $15 a day to be spent on food and water. The programme will be repeated in 2009 and 2010.

The decision is derived from the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II which stipulates that the necessary social interventions must be put in place by government to ensure that direct cash is put into the pockets of the poor.

Clearly, this is very demeaning to the average Ghanaian who for almost eight years has been told his or her life has gotten better. I believe that the real people who need this sympathy are orphans, internally displaced persons, old and sick persons disowned by their families. Besides, philanthropy is already taking care of these people.

Read on....




Feature Article of Thursday, 31 January 2008 in Ghana web

Direct Cash for the Poor-Ghana's grand centrally planned waste.

Medieval Kings and Princes were naively convinced by alchemists that they could turn lead into gold. Even though the alchemists repeatedly failed, they received the support of the Kings and Princes and the joke continued until every one became fed up.

If the above was a fairy tale, be prepared for the greatest hoax of all time, being hatched in modern Ghana, allegedly one of the fastest reforming economies according to the World Bank.The decision by the Ghanaian government to make direct cash transfers of between $8- $ 15 every other month to those it solely identifies as poor, marginalized, vulnerable and weak has gotten the ire of many Ghanaians.

Particularly worrying is the state of mind of government advisors on this idea. Their magic wand to ending poverty evokes images of a cabal of hitherto intelligent academics whose leap of faith in deformed poverty reduction papers surpasses the tiny but useful bits of information on individual needs and wants in an economy. Such dispersed infinitesimal information is key to decision making, but not a centrally controlled one as giving direct cash to alleviate one's poverty, created by successive governments in the first place.

Eventually, because many African governments feed on populism rather than what works, our government will deliberately not see the enormity of its attempt to embrace what clearly is a failure.

The government's endorsement of such a plan means that they have little faith in some of the steps they confidently took in 2001 which saved us from a downward spiral. Then, the economy was in one word, stupid. Today, having navigated that tight rope which many African governments will want to catch a shadow of, the limited market-oriented policies that gave it a jolt is painfully being dumped in favour of a Chavez-Castro-Mugabe type economy. An economist has even suggested that the reason for government's about turn is because the market economy had brought in its wake untold hardships to the poor. So, collectivist countries like Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba have been cited as leaders in making direct cash to the poor. Even the US and the UK were cited as well.

But we all know the festering laziness and impoverishment such packages have caused among minority communities wherever they have been introduced. Supporters of this perverted economic theory are pointing to the near recession of the U.S economy and the government's response by infusing over US$140 billion into the economy. Yes, that's salvation, but then the cash will come in the form of tax cuts for some 100 million people who have been hit by the mortgage crisis. That's a far cry from making direct cash transfers.

Yes, the market is a process and likely to make mistakes which are self-correcting by the way, with occasional sensible regulation. But we must be mindful that a market economy supervised by crony capitalists has the same effect like that organized under a mafia.Besides if you pursue any economic system half-heartedly, you wouldn't reap its full results.

So, even though the current administration ostensibly supports a private sector-led economy, its taxation policies have simply been a cut and paste one. Apart from the myriad of double taxation we are burdened with on virtually everything edible, the very poor Ghanaians have been asked to pay air time tax on mobile phones. The talk time tax itself does not worry me, but what the proceeds are intended for--government supervised employment schemes, which obviously is another flamboyant voter gimmick. Government thwarts the efforts of public utility regulators when they set realistic tariffs with voter-induced subsidies and then fails to ensure that adequate transparent investments is made in the delivery of good sanitation, water and electricity. The inability of even urban residents to access these services adds to their poverty.

Granted the 'kindness' of government sees the light, how can we ensure that the money actually gets into the pockets of the identified people especially because of our not too transparent agencies? The government and its poor friends would be up against officials of Ministries, Departments and Agencies that have been alleged to misappropriate 443 billion cedis (over $46 million) last year alone aside the inability, in one instance, to provide documents to cover the purchase of 113 officials cars.

Discerning Ghanaians are asking other questions- so what happened to the millions saved in debt repayment after 80% of our debts were forgiven during the G8 Gleneagles summit in 2005? What happened to the handsome windfalls from world cocoa and gold prices? What happens to the myriad of taxes we pay? And what will happen to the Millennium Challenge Account money?

How much of all the money sourced above and the one for merry-making every other month will go into agricultural reforms? Would it ensure secure land tenure for farmers to enhance large scale production?, train agric extension officers to advise farmers on best farming practices, provide soft loans, reduced prices of agricultural inputs, support infrastructure to facilitate storage and movement of goods, so that our energetic rural youth will not flock to the cities in search of absentee jobs?.

Opposition to the above suggestion will come from praise-singing propagandists who will attempt to say real decentralization of power and resources to every district in Ghana will not solve our problems as local knowledge is not sufficient to determine what is good for the locals.

If every district was allowed to determine its own economic agenda, there will indeed be no need for government parastatals to convince the President for instance, to assemble all his hard working ministers to organize a people's assembly in a region once a year to listen to personal problems of poor people that could have been solved by an empowered village town crier who the villagers themselves elect.To those propagandists who think this cannot work, I will recommend Thomas Sowell's book "Knowledge and Decisions".

Franklin Cudjoe is Executive Director of IMANI Center for Policy & Education and editor of www.AfricanLiberty.org