Congratulations to President John Mahama and the NDC party for their lost in wonder performance at the recent presidential and parliamentary elections. You have a third time president (Mahama 3.0), the first female vice president, and super majority in parliament. Grand. Mr President, I believe that as the only person who has sworn Ghana’s presidential oath three times you mean business this time around. Failure will be unforgivable and will shatter the half dead trust of Ghanaians in the governance system. Failure is therefore not an option for you. We all know the dire state of Ghana’s economy and the conditions of the Ghanaian people. Indeed, this is an opportunity for you not to fail but leave a large imprint in the lives and memories of Ghanaians. Nietzsche, a great thinker, once said ‘it is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height’. You might want to see Judges 16:30 and 2 Corinthians 12:9 for extra boost.
Outcome, impact, and legacy must be the metrics for all your government’s actions and policies. Yes, legacy. ‘What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see’ (Hamilton Musical). I know you already have your priorities and are working on your programme of action with your team. You and your team would want to pay attention to the words of J.K Galbraith, the American diplomat, that politics is not the art of the possible and it consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable; and that of the UK politician, Dennis Healy, that there are two kinds of politicians: those who do what they think is right and those who do what is popular. I hope you choose what is right however unpalatable. Ghana needs a strong, courageous, and disciplined leader to claim its mantle as the Black Star of the world (correction: not Africa).
Be mindful of the ‘astroturf’ mentality that has possessed the Ghanaian mind – the penchant for overinflated things with shiny surfaces/appearances without the critical core and deep rooted foundation to make them last. E.g. parliamentarians are more engrossed in the theatrics of vetting ministers but less concerned about scrutinising the work of ministers and public officials (when do we see ministers and public official invited by parliament committees for scrutiny, etc?). A digitisation drive, or whatever they called it, without an underlying seamless public digital infrastructure and expansion of the energy capacity to accommodate the big physical infrastructure (e.g. servers etc.) needed for a truly effective digital revolution. As lucidly described by the erudite Bright Simons, the Ghanaian elite has been ‘enchanted by the state’.
As a fellow busy body, I have listed below snippets of my wish list for you and your government. There will be many such wishes and demands from all over, but I trust you will be able to distinguish between the noise and the signal.
ECONOMIC AND GOVERNANCE DELIVERY
I read that Ato Forson, likely finance minister, said he will establish a value for money office to scrutinise all projects. Good thinking. I would suggest he goes beyond value for money assessments/audits and establish a bigger agency/office (independent and nonpartisan, of course) with three divisions that consider these three things:
1. Oversight and scrutiny of the use of taxpayer funds i.e. taxes and levies collected for specific purposes e.g. roads, NHIS, GETfund, COVID, E-levy, to ensure that such funds are allocated/directed to their intended purposes. We often hear of how these funds are transferred to the accounts of the ministry of finance and used for other purposes. This would be similar to the US Government Accountability Office. Evidence shows that transparency through scrutiny and oversight of tax payer funds leads to efficient use of funds, enhances trust among the populace, and improves tax compliance, as people see that the funds are used for their intended economic and social goals (see Gobena & Van Dijike 2016 & 2017, Jimenez P & Iyer G 2016, Capasso S et al 2021).
2. Value for money assessments/audits of all major government initiatives/projects/programmes. Something similar to the US Congressional Budget Office and UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) but with a focus on pre mortem instead of the postmortem assessments/audits of the NAO.
3. Analysis forecasting and reporting on fiscal policies and public finances – fiscal responsibility. Roles and structures for this function varies from country to country. Check the network of EU independent fiscal institutions https://www.euifis.eu for more information.
Ghana Statistical Service – strengthen the capacity of the Ghana statistical service to fulfil its mandate, particularly relating to its regulatory functions (monitoring and oversight of official statistics), to ensure the validity, reliability and relevance of official statistics.
I believe that doing these will promote good governance and sound economic management and in turn secure the trust of both citizens and external partners, particularly donors and creditors who cite opaqueness of economic management as reason for the high-risk rating and high cost of borrowing for African institutions and governments.
Strategy and Delivery Units – create strategy and delivery units in the presidency under the supervision of a high ranking official (e.g. a presidential adviser who attends and participates in cabinet meetings). The strategy unit will handle policy formulation, analysis (including pre-mortem analysis), and communications while the delivery unit handles implementation, challenge, evaluation and make things happen (guided by the triumvirate metrics – outcome, impact, legacy). These units should be staffed by the brightest minds, including young graduates, you can find in the country. Tony Blair’s UK government had such an outfit, and the US presidency has the Office of Management and Budget, with a much broader remit.