By Kunle Ajibade
Last week, The Economist of London (June 20th – 26th 2015 edition) ran a story on the near-collapse of the economy of Ghana. In that story, we were told that public debt could reach 70% of GDP of Ghana before the end of this year. Because investors continue to shun its bonds, Ghana’s currency, the cedi, has lost over 99% of its value against the US dollar. Inflation is soaring high. Miseries are taking over the market-places. Ghana, which has borrowed from International Monetary Fund more than 26 times since 1966, is turning, once again, to that financial institution which will only give another loan with all the conditionalities attached – condititionalities that will eventually erode the sovereignty of Ghana as a nation. That story could have been about most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Where did the rains of unending economic, social and political adversities start beating Africa? Why is it stuck in the hell-hole of these calamities, becoming a wretched of the earth? Why is it that when IMF and World Bank ask African countries to reform and adjust with a promise that they will attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) they usually end up handing over their economies to foreign investors, leaving millions of Africans in extreme poverty and the future of their countries in dire strait? What is responsible for what Professor Issa Shivji has described appropriately as this ‘’imperial injustice”? In concrete terms, can the solutions the financial institutions of the world – IMF, World Bank and their allied agencies continue to offer Africa save it? In what ways have these solutions compounded its problems? If these solutions have not solved Africa’s developmental problems, are there alternative strategies – strategies that have been proffered by African statesmen, and Africanist scholars across the world? How …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
