Letters
Support for PANA is a must
I am surprised that some African states are unwilling to pay their contributions to support the activities of OAU and Pan African News Agency (PANA).Such countries need not be reminded that they are digging their own graves. Africa should see progress and that is why it is necessary that we support such common organisations. We have been in the dark for far too long.
The Western media should not be allowed to outrun PANA, because it is only interested in coups and disasters in Africa. North America recently declared its intention to withdraw from UNESCO, because western monopoly on dissemination of information was being threatened by the formation of such organisations as PANA.
As a matter of fact, a lot of people outside Africa know very little about the continent and its people. They only hear about the continent after coups, drought and diseases. It is all because they are not well informed. PANA is therefore, the only medium through which such people can be educated.
Why can't the said member states put part of the money they use to import ammunitions annually to support these organisations? I would suggest that the names of the defaulting member states be published for us to know those who want to pull us back.
Contributions towards the liberation movements like ANC and SWAPO should also be up-to-date.
Our brothers and sisters in Southern Africa have suffered and continue to suffer from injustice. Do they need to suffer any longer? For how long do they have to be dictated to by 'foreigners on their own soil? They are denied the basic human rights. Even the right to vote.
And Mr Botha and his colleagues should see reason and give our people in Southern Africa what they want. It is their own soil. The deposits of gold and other natural resources belong to them. All Africans should gird up their loins and refuse to compromise on the Southern African question. Yaw Owusu-Donkor, 2000 Hamburg.
Budget deficit will fuel inflation
The new executive chairman of the GNTC seems to have the right practical spirit we need now in Ghana. The GNTC needs to be trimmed. In addition, all the various departments should be set specific objectives in profitability and efficiency.The pressure should be on Senior Management should be responsible for the attainment of these goals and made to account for poor performances. In other words, if you don't make it, you get kicked out.
The proposed budget deficit of €20,000 billion must be rejected by all Ghanaians. Unemotional acquiescence of Ghanaians to this is a reflection of how we have settled for considerably less than the best in economic planning by our various governments since independence. There should be a great outcry over this. All secretaries should be made to submit new estimates for expenditure. We should live within our means. If we cannot afford to extend the telephone service to Dansoman, we should forget it, for now.
We all admit that the economy needs discipline. However a budget deficit like this will fuel inflation and further weaken the cedi. This is the result of poor economic planning and people must be held responsible.
Kafui King, Brunei
Ghana a turnround?
There has been recently a series of articles, the Financial Times report quoted in your 5th March issue being one such example - appearing to suggest that Ghana is finally on the mend after the PNDC has done a volte-face by drinking the IMF medicine. The Financial Times article quoted an unnamed IMF official as saying that "we don't care a damn what sort of regime they are, provided they use their resources efficiently". Well, so much for a classic case of tunnel vision!Can't that damn official ever realise that when the unchallenged wisdom of a few prevails in the governance of a country and when it is conditioned by preset ideas, resources will inevitably be misused. The climate for efficient utilisation of our resources can never be created when flair and imagination have been stifled by the ossified bureaucratic organs which the PNDC has erected in Ghana.
I am not an economist, but surely the indicators which practitioners of the 'dismal science' (IMF ones included) use in assessing the success or failure of economic policies, would seem to suggest that, given the scale of Ghana's current malaise, our situation cannot lend itself to the recovery the IMF desires within one year. Much less so within the space of six months!
In a country, woefully lacking in the type of statistical information used to determine the impact of macro and micro economic measures, it beats my mind how the IMF or the newspapers came to the conclusion of a turnaround. Is someone managing the news for the PNDC? Or is it, as you implied in your article "Supping with the Devil" in the 12th March issue, a case of trying to justify the effectiveness of the IMF prescription even before it has had a chance to show that it can work? I am not opposed to the IMF formula in principle. Indeed, it may well be the only sensible alternative left for a nation that has for so long been living beyond its means.
I am not yet convinced that the quality of our civil service has so improved since 1981 that it can ensure the success of the IMF programme. Let's face it: for the pill to achieve the desired objectives, there is the need for high-quality skills of the kind that I do not see available in the government of Ghana today.
Unless the IMF itself is involved in the implementation of its programme to the last detail, the incompetence of the current political leadership and the bureaucracy will conspire to make mincemeat of the impact of the IMF measures.
In all the talk about Ghana's turn round, has the IMF or the apologists of the PNDC ever heard of the word 'apathy'? It cannot be measured in economic terms but I can assure all of them that it can cause havoc with the best of economic proposals, and can have the most serious adverse effects on a national economy. It exists in Ghana today, and was created by the attitudes and policies of the PNDC. It has distorted our economy and I can bet anybody in the IMF that it will wreck their prescription.
So, MR OFFICIAL OF THE IMF, it does matter a hell of a lot what sort of regime we have in Ghana, if you hope to replace economic decline with economic growth.
If you sup with the devil, you are likely to be sucked into his machinations.
You cannot pursue a sensible direction in one area and then promote non sense in all others and hope all will be well. It is like the Biblical case of new wine in old wine skins. That we are assured, does not give a good taste. It is in this sense tht the IMF and all those countries who have been persuaded to help rehabilitate the economy of Ghana, may yet see their efforts fail.
If you do not care a damn what sort of regime they are, your dollars and their resources will be misused. There is no doubt in my mind about this.
Tetteh Hedzi, London
