Give Ghanaians 1st Option – Is this in our interest or against the Ghanaian Interest

I put this post on my facebook wall “Cabinet commitment to concrete roads in Ghana is great news. Please let give Ghanaian contractors the 1st option. #Ghanaians1st”

This generated very interesting conversation. I want to share the discussion the particular one between myself and my senior Krazy, Yaw Nsarkoh.

https://www.facebook.com/The.General.Pozo/posts/10212573905676303?comment_id=10212576112451471&reply_comment_id=10212576805108787&notif_t=feed_comment&notif_id=1500225752693844

Yaw Nsarkoh started with a rhetorical question which he sort to answer to make his point. “Why exactly must Ghanaian contractors be given the first option? Because they are the best according to clear and transparent criteria? Or simply because they are Ghanaian?” This begun our back and forths as set out below

Edem Ashigbi 1st because they have the capacity to do the job. That should be the 1st consideration and we support them with the other conditions we put into these contract, including financial capacity. We should be prepared to help Ghanaian firms come together to have the size required to meet these conditions

Yaw Nsarkoh We should be prepared to help Ghanaian firms become competitive. That is where it ends for me. Ghanaian firms must then compete in fair and transparent tender processes.

When Ghanaian firms are full grown, they will play in export markets. Should those markets be shut to them on the basis of nationality?

Edem Ashigbi Yaw Nsarkoh giving Ghanaians the 1st option has nothing to do with shutting the local markets to foreign firms. But the current situation where we shut our local markets to local firms is not in our interest. Check history which of the developed economies have developed by not providing some protection for the young when they are vulnerable. It is even a law of nature. Neither the US, the Europeans, Japan, China nor the Asian Tigers did. The only thing we should do is that we should support indigenous firms who demonstrate the capacity to do well & we should have strict rewards and sanction regimes for such support when we provide them. It should not be given to cronies who cannot perform.

Yaw Nsarkoh I am unsure your recollection of the historical account is right. These are common place myths that have been bandied around. The South East Asians started with the world market and competitiveness uppermost in their considerations. This is why export market contribution targets, for example, were very rigidly enforced. No people on earth have achieved development by protecting inefficient modes of production or business! None! You need a clear roadmap to competitiveness – elements of state strategic support to specific sectors must then be backed by transparent counterparts. And competent administration.

If this protection of anything and everything works that well, why only contractors? Protect academie too. And fashion. And everything else.

Edem Ashigbi Yaw Nsarkoh Share one country that has developed without provide some elements of protection for its people

Edem Ashigbi I agree with you no one will develop protecting an inefficient system, so you need elements of preferential support for efficient companies where you set the right sanctions and rewards for them to improve. We need to be able to use some of our local demand to grow them. Otherwise there is no way our own will develop.

Yaw Nsarkoh Edem Ashigbi, share one country that has attained and sustained development without a roadmap to competitiveness – diligently implemented. Protection is easy. Elevating it to strategic support within a framework of a strategic drive for global competitiveness is what unlocks broadbased prosperity and inclusive growth. I am deeply, deeply worried that a very simplistic interpretation – not necessarily yours – is being made of the Asian journey to development for example.

What exactly are we protecting? Dumsor? Ineffective ports? Poor public sanitation? Strained public education? Development is a function of capabilities.

Edem Ashigbi You need a clear roadmap to competitiveness – elements of state strategic support to specific sectors must then be backed by transparent counterparts. And competent administration. – This cannot succeed when at the point when they start they do not even have opportunity to do anything. We need to look into areas where we have competitive advantage and go at those areas

Edem Ashigbi But chief my post never said only contractors – I was commenting on road construction so what will fashion designers have to do with road construction?

Yaw Nsarkoh I make a humble appeal to the media. Do not allow a simplistic slide towards crude protectionism. The facts about development deserve more serious scrutiny than, for example, attributing Asian development to protectionism. During the ASEAN economic surge, can we do more diligent and detailed scrutiny of the approach they took to education, for example? We may get some more serious clues.

Edem Ashigbi Yaw Nsarkoh my challenge with you is that you seem to arguing out of context. I mention Contractors for a Cement Road job and you ask me about fashion designer. Now you are referring to the media not allowing a slide towards crude protectionism. I am not sure that is what I was referring to when I asked that Ghanaians should be given the 1st option. The call for 1st option I guess means that there will be other options. It is so different from Only option. I am not sure that the media is pushing for crude protectionism. I will be the last person to push for that. But my arguments is reinforced by Prof Joon Chang of Cambridge University and he argues it very clearly in his book the bad samaritans – the Bad Samaritan who preaches free market and free trade to the poor countries, taking advantage of others who are in trouble. Due to the historical amnesia and established double standards today’s Bad Samaritans do not realize that their recommendations of free market and
free trade are hurting the developing countries. Bad Samaritans, imposing neo-liberal macroeconomic policies on developing countries, hamper these countries ability to
invest, and create jobs in the long run.

Yaw Nsarkoh First, you mix up issues.

1. I illustrate some absurdity in crude protectionism by using the application of the principles in broader spectra. Hence other professions.

20th. I am making an appeal to the media on this insuffciently understood matter. The media has a role to educate with facts.

3. On Prof Chang, bright guy. I have little respect for insignias. I subscribe to know isms. I pursue broadbased prosperity and inclusive growth with what works within the law and my framework of values. If that makes me statist, free-market, socialist, capitalist, whatever, I leave to those for whom those descriptors matter.

Protection is not a standalone strategy. Without a roadmap to sustainable competitiveness, a fact the Asians were very aware of, it is pernicious to the core.

Edem Ashigbi Yaw Nsarkoh I missed the fact that your comment was not necessarily mine. I agree with the support and I will not call protectionism for our own should be part of a strategic plan that is well thought through and with very clear and transparent execution action plan, with very strict sanctions and rewards regime

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