<<Print>>

The importance of the aforementioned publication�s analysis about Ghana�s standing on the governance table should not amuse any citizen of this country. Yesterday, we carried the first installment of our commentary which in our opinion should trigger a change in government attitude towards the all-important subject of investment. Unless this is done, we shall continue to wallow in the sea of poverty even as the Bretton Woods institutions come to our aid. Sometimes, we wonder whether those in charge of managing policies really mean it when they invite investors to pitch camp in the country. The worrying statistics posted by both the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA) and the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) should provoke us to seek a way out of the seeming quagmire into which we appear to be stuck in. According to the reports, some 500,000 Ghanaians have joined the poverty bracket in the past year, suggesting that the reduced level from 35% to 28.5% in 2006 has shot up again. The 1980s mindset of a so-called false revolutionary utopia which demands such attitude towards private sector development is rife among a section of the ruling class, and it is unfortunate for the country. Such a primordial notion is a critical factor driving those in authority to treat investments the way they are doing now. Ghana and the rest of the world have changed since those years and we dare the supporters of the order to prove us wrong. Maintaining the lenses of the 80s, now that they are in power, would not help our cause as a nation intent on moving forward. President Mills does not need to be told that he is writing his own CV, with which he would be judged tomorrow which is around the corner. When the business environment is fouled as a result of the glaring and avoidable shortcomings, the whole country would suffer the negative fallouts and it pains to think that there is total apathy even as the Wall Street Journal�s damning observation goes round the world. Let the presidential advisers pay heed to the impression being posted about our dear country, for a word to a wise is enough. Since investment is about how to attract money from mostly businesses outside our borders, there is the need for us to be diplomatic, civil and abiding by time-tested international standards. As for the political pettiness, which is our stock-in-trade, we had better contain it within the realm of our local politics.