Forty-four years ago, on March 6, 1957, a small black African nation, south of the Sahara became the first black African nation to obtain self-government from Imperial Colonial rule. Several governmental and institutional metamorphoses took place after the British colonial power handed over the administration of the then Gold Coast to local administration and self-governance. Before the Europeans set foot on the west coast of Africa, there were several segments of local and ethnic administration, with local governance precipitated by warring tribal groups.
Sectionalized and identifiable empires on the basis of those existing in Europe were nonexistence, instead there were several dominant tribes, such as, the Ashanti, which empire stretched from the main land, in Ghana to Cote de’Voire and were the most feared. They dominated smaller tribes in the surrounding periphery, and the governance of the local tribal entities was in the hands of the Kings and chiefs. The type of government and administration was a combination of totalitarianism and democratic rule.Settlements along the Ghanaian coastlines date back some 40,000 years. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to venture onto the Guinea coast of West Africa- they came in search of gold, which they found in abundance adorning the powerful Ashanti kings. They soon began the construction of several forts along what came to be known as the Gold Coast. Their plundered gold was shipped back to Europe as ingots. Later under the canopy of trade, they began trading in slaves. The Portuguese fortunes attracted other Europeans--the Dutch, British, and Danes. For the next 250 years, all four nations competed fiercely to control the trade, building forts or capturing those of rival.
From the time the Portuguese discovered gold in 1471 to independence in 1957, the monarch of several European kingdoms, notably Denmark, England, Holland, Prussia and Sweden, sent hordes of explorers and merchants to the country for its abundant wealth, both natural and human. They battles for supremacy and control over land, and built forts and castles which also served as trading posts, Vestiges of the extent of European colonial presence and concentration are evidenced by the fact that 29 of the 32 European colonial forts and castles which dotted the coast of west Africa are in Ghana.
In 1821, the British took over the forts to use as customs posts, after the demise of slavery by signing treaties with many local chiefs, especially those in the coastal areas. These arrangements handsomely profited many of the chiefs --the wealth and influence of the chiefs made the British increasingly uneasy. From 1826 to 1900, the British fought a series of campaigns against the Ashantis, whose kingdom was located inland. Then in 1873, when the Ashantis (the only powerful local empire the British could not conquer) refused to give up Kumasi (the capital of the Ashanti empire) the British besieged the city and declared the Gold Coast a crown colony. Ashanti resistance continued until 1900, when the Ashantis attacked the British fort in Kumasi. The fierce battle that ensued almost destroyed Kumasi. In the end, the Ashantis having lost the battle to the British paved the way for the total British domination of the Gold Coast.
The British intended to make the Gold Coast a showcase African nation, and as a result allowed only few Europeans to settle or even be employed there. Cocoa exports became the backbone of the economy, followed by gold, timber, manganese, bauxite and diamond. By World War I, the Gold Coast was the most prosperous colony in black Africa, with the best schools, and civil service, a cadre of enlightened lawyers and a thriving press. Still, anti-British sentiments ran deep.
Until March 6, 1957, Ghana was called the "Gold Coast", a name given it by the early Portuguese. The name aptly described the country’s wealth in gold and natural resources. To the present day, Ghana’s natural resources include the following:
In the late 1920s, a number of political parties and powers brokers emerged among whom were Dr. J.B Danquah, Dr. K A Busia, Obetsebi Lamptey, K.A Gbedemah, and a cadre of others who were dedicated to regaining African independence. In 1947, Kwame Nkrumah, the American-educated secretary general of the country’s leading political party, broke away and formed the Convention People’s Party, aimed at the common person and pushed the slogan ‘Self Government Now’. In 1949, Kwame Nkrumah brought the country to a halt by calling a national strike. The British responded by throwing him in prison, only to release him two years later after his party had won three general elections in his absence.
In 1951, a constitution was promulgated that called for a greatly enlarged legislature composed principally of members elected by popular vote directly or indirectly. An executive council was responsible for formulating policy, with most African members drawn from the legislature and including three ex officio members appointed by the governor. A new constitution, approved on April 29, 1954, established a cabinet comprising African Ministers drawn from an all-African legislature chosen by direct election. In the elections that followed, the Convention People’s Party (CPP), led by Kwame Nkrumah, won the majority of seats in the new Legislative Assembly. In May 1956, Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah’s Gold Coast government issued a white paper containing proposals for Gold Coast independence.
Finally, independence came on March 6,1957, the United Kingdom relinquished its control over the Colony of the Gold Coast. The colonial name the Gold Coast was changed to Ghana, to reflect the great ancient African empire of Ghana were most Ghanaians of today’s descent were purported to have originated after migrating south of the Sahara.
GHANA TODAY!
Location:
Ghana is located on the west coast of Africa, about 750 km north of the equator on the Gulf of Guinea, between the latitudes of 4-11.5 north. The capita city, Accra, is located on the Greenwich meridian (zero line of longitude). The country has a total land area of 238,305 km2 and is bounded on the north by Burkina Faso, on the west by Cote d’Ivoire, on the east by Togo and on the south by Gulf of Guinea. All three neighbors were former French colonies. The land area stretches for 672 km north-south and 536 km east-west.
Land and Climate:
The coastal area of Ghana consists of plains and numerous lagoons near the estuaries of rivers. The land is relatively flat and the altitude is generally 500m, with more than half the country below 200m. The Volta River basin dominates the county’s river system and includes the 8,480 km2 Lake Volta (the largest artificial lake in the world), formed behind the Akosombo hydroelectric dam. In the north, the predominant vegetation is savannah and shrub, while the south has an extensive rain forest.
Ghana has a tropical climate, characterized most of the year by moderate temperatures (generally 21-32 degree C (70-90 degree F)), constant breezes and sunshine. There are two rainy seasons, from March to July and from September to October, separated by a short dry season in August and a relatively long dry season in the south from mid-October to March. Annual rainfall in the south averages 2,030 mm but varies greatly throughout the country, with the heaviest rainfall in the western region and the lowest in the north.
Population, Language, Education, Health and Religion:
The population of the country is about 18 million (2000 estimate), with 45 percent under 15 years of age. The country has on average a population density of about 52 persons per square kilometer. With an annual growth rate of 3.2 percent. Most of the population is concentrated in the southern part of the country, with the highest densities occurring in urban areas and cocoa-producing areas. The largest regions in terms of population are Ashanti (about 2 million), eastern (about 1.7 million) and greater Accra, the sit of government (about 1.5 million).
The official language of the country is English, however, the principal ethnic groups are the Akans (Twi and Fante speaking), the Guans, Ewes, Dagomba, Gas, Gonja, Dagabas, Walas and Frafra. Twi, Fante, Ga, Hausa, Dagbani, Ewe and Nzema are the major ethnic languages.
There are numerous grammar, high schools, commercial, technical and vocational education institutions throughout the country. There are five universities: University of Ghana at Legon, Accra, the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi, the University of Cape coast, the University of Development Studies at Tamale and the University College of Education at Winneba. In addition, there are numerous specialized tertiary institutions in the country.
Ghana has a reasonably good health services. Al regional capitals and most districts have hospitals and clinics. There are two teaching hospitals in Accra and Kumasi producing medical doctors and qualified nurses. These teaching hospitals also have facilities for treating special cases. Additionally, a number of religious and private organizations operate hospitals and clinics al over the country. Herbal medicine and psychic healing are also generally practiced. There is a special government Herbal Medicine Hospital and Research Center at Akwapim-Mampong.
The population of the country comprises Christians (43 percent), animists (38 percent), and Muslim (12 percent). There is complete freedom of religion in Ghana.
Constitution and government:
From March 6, 1957 to 1992, Ghana under Dr. Kwame Nkrumah went through many rough political and social changes. There was the need to catch up with the developed world and stop the over dependence on the developed world for the supply of finished goods. Ghana wanted to eliminate its image and code name "Heavers of raw-goods" to "Producers of finished goods". A whole new industrial city—Tema was built, sufficient with a modern port and manufacturing plants.
A hydroelectric dam was built at Akosombo to feed the industries with the much-needed energy. There was the search for the "black gold" –oil but to no avail. Ghana’s catch-ups economic and social philosophy was obviously, too fast. The bold economic ventures led to the depletion of the much-cherished stockpile of foreign reserves left by the legacy colonial masters. The bold economic moves, even though in the right direction, nevertheless, led to problems-- there were shortages of goods and supplies in the economic system, there was total economic destabilization.
Part of the problems was, Ghana abandoned its own cultural and economic development legacies of its ancestors. The ways of the forefathers were abandoned, Ghana did not build on what was bequeathed to them, and instead, the European cultures and developments were copied blindly. There were several military coups that toppled democratically elected governments in the attempt to bring about democracy, economic and demographic stabilization.
In 1992, after several years of military rule, inter-mingled with two civilian administrations, the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) handed over administration of the country to an elected government with constitutional rule and a multi-party parliamentary system.
The first democratically and constitutionally elected government under the fourth Republic, after several years of military rule was under the NDC party, with Flight Lt. Jerry John Rawlings as the first president. The new civilian government under Rawlings took the country away from the aggressive and radically socialistic rule of government as practiced by the military to the western world’s orientation of free-market and economically viable type of government.
This developed and also revealed a broad support by political parties for continuing economic reforms, placing greater emphasis on commitment to private sector development. The government instituted Internationally acclaimed Economic Recovery Program (ERP), liberalized economy and foreign exchange system, new Investment Code and Investment Promotion, Center for Export Promotion that offers advice to both existing and potential investors, systematic tax relief for infant industries, free Export Processing Zone and a variety of technological and telecommunication related networks. All these ventures spurred the economy on to recovery, culminating in Ghana being declared as the emerging Gateway to the West Africa Sub-region.
In the 1996-second general elections in the fourth republic, under civilian rule, the NDC party again won, and Flight Lt. Jerry John Rawlings was re-elected to a second term as president. The economic advances under the first civilian government were short lived, the fall of cocoa and gold prices, the main stays of the Ghana’s economy, couple with the rise in petroleum price on the world market, and the introduction of the value-added taxation system in Ghana, fueled by ominous misadministration and chronic and cancerous corruptions in government and the private sectors led to several levels of severe austerity, resulting in Ghanaians clamoring for a change in government. The economy was at a hype-inflationary rate, the exchange rate, which used to be about 3.50 cedis to $1.00 in 1980 was at the end of year 2000, at about 6,500.00 cedis to $1.00
Finally, in the third general elections held in November 2000, the opposition main party, NPP was swept into power by winning the majority of the sits in parliament. The elections did not however, result into a clear mandate for neither of the presidential candidates for the presidency, and in a run-off election on December 28, 2000, between Prof. John Arthur Mills of the NDC and John Agyekum Kufour of NPP party, John Kufour won with a clear majority and was sworn into office in January 2001 as the third president of the fourth republic of Ghana.
Future Ghana:
For the past decade, the government has created business opportunities to encourage the influx of foreign businesses to the country. Investment ventures in partnership with local businesses were encouraged through the establishment of Ghana Investment Promotion Center Act in 1994 and the other acts in existence before that. Despite the business promotion acts, which were introduced by government to encourage foreign participation in the growth of the economy, Ghana’s future and destiny is dependent entirely on Ghanaians.
The population’s predilection for foreign goods and services is part of the problem. Ghana has not seen any meaningful rise in its GDP the last decade. The country’s GDP the last two decades has always hovered around $370 million, with cocoa, gold and tourism contributing the bulk. It is mind boggling, that for a developing country such as Ghana, the greater contributors to the Gross Domestic Product are not entirely comprised of the many other agricultural produce such as cotton, palm oil, cola, Soya beans etc, but instead of cocoa alone.
Ghanaians’ orientation for foreign consumable goods and services instead of locally produced goods and services need to be changed if there should any improvement in our standard and our socio-economic situation. We have abandoned almost entirely our customs and traditional ways of doing things to the western traditions, from religion, social and cultural customs to medical science. Countries such Japan, China and India, etc that are doing well structurally and economically have imported the western technical know-how and integrated them with their own customs and traditional values. We need to be doing the same if we should survive.
Agricultural Production
Since the completion of the Volta Dam, with the creation of the world’s largest man-made lake, we have not harnessed the water resources available to us. Water should have been treated as our "White Gold" by channeling the vast lake reserves to irrigation. It beats ones imagination that previous governments the past thirty years have left the Accra and the vast Northern and Upper plains still fallow and without irrigation since the creation of the Volta Lake. Probably, there may be some plans in the pipeline!
The argument in some quarters that Ghana’s neighbor in the north, Burkina Faso might stop the flow of the Volta river from its source and thereby stifling the Volta lake must be met with other challenges such as the creation underground reservoirs for storing the excess Volta Lake waters which cause flooding during the rainy seasons. That way, the stored water could be released and used to irrigate the plains during dry seasons. We do not need any advance technology to construct the irrigations, for there is abundance supply of manual labor from school leavers who cannot find jobs. We would be killing two birds with one stone, solving unemployment, and the problem of irrigation. After all, the New York State built the great canals connecting New York with the great Lakes in the early 20th century by relying entirely on manual labor. Also, during the reign of the great Roman Empire, underground aqueducts and waterways underneath Rome were constructed with manual labor. We can do the same!
Once the plains are irrigated, agricultural raw materials such as cotton, Soya beans etc, and local sustainable food items such as rice, millet, tomatoes and corn could be grown on commercial scale for export and local consumption, thus limiting the over dependence on the importation of such stable food items.
Secondly, the tendency of governments of Ghana not continuing project initiated and started with borrowed money from world financiers for which interest is still being paid, and starting new ones must cease. We must see to the completion of old projects once started before starting new ones. One wonders about the outcome of the underground sewage system started in Accra during the Dr. Busia’s reign, over 30 years ago?
Clement
D. Timpo
President/CEO
Ghana National Council