Opinion
Why Ghana Needs Its Own ‘Dangotes,’ ‘Jack Mas’
This happens in ways similar to the contribution made by Mr Dangote and Jack Ma towards the fight against the COVID-19 spread.
In spite of having its flaws like Ghana does, Nigeria and other countries had, over the years, created conducive environments that allowed business ideas to thrive and strengthen into giant multinationals.
These businesses birthed the rich and wealthy whose wealth have not been seen as threats to political establishments but a necessary part of a whole and a general good to the health of the economy and the country at large.
There is no gainsaying that those governments and countries have benefited and are still benefiting from that support system in these extraordinary times.
Political lenses
What then prevents Ghana from also benefiting from the wealth of its citizens? Ghana must, but to do that the country needs to create its own wealthy citizens.
This is where our political environment and the mindset of those who lead need to change.
Our political governance structure concentrates power in the Executive arm of the government and that makes it possible for the actions of the occupants to either bless or poison the entire country.
Over the years, the impact of these actions on our business acumen as a nation has been obnoxious and scrappy.
Due to political expediencies, many business ideas that would have created wealthy and multimillion-dollar Ghanaians, multinational companies and big time employers have been crashed or marginalised.
Local businesses are hardly given support and those that get it do so through unsustainable methods.
We appear to prioritise political patronage over national good and, therefore, see everything through political lenses.
It explains why we create environments that grow foreign businesses over local ones, are prompt to choose foreign firms over local ones for contracts, and whenever local firms get to do some of the contracts, payments become a headache.
These need to change if we are to raise our own Dangotes, Ja Mas and the rest.
Building our own
After 63 years of political independence, we need to be more concerned about what we have used the freedom our forefathers fought so hard to attain for, beyond having the right to choose who among us rules the nation.
We need to be concerned about how much of the economy really belongs to us – Ghanaians – and how can we use the state’s overwhelming power to create individuals who can own a chuck of our own economy rather using it to crash them.
We need to genuinely create a system that blesses our environment with a ‘Ghana first’ mentality rather than poisoning it with ‘party first’ attitude.
Given the intellect and the hardworking nature of the Ghanaian, there is no gainsaying that we can create our own ‘Dangotes’ and ‘Jack Mas’ right here from Ghana.
That should be a national priority through which all of us can objectively contribute our ideas and resources to building the next generation of Ghanaians whose wealth will help the government to fight pandemics like the COVID-19.
While doing that we need to be aware that in the individualistic sense of things, those rich people maybe the single persons whose wealth and affluence remain their private property until a time when they decide to share them with the rest of the citizens.
In the broader sense of things, however, these wealthy are the anchor of the nation through which its might would be defined and the economy expands.
Therefore, by empowering people to be wealthy through a conducive, fair and objective environment, the country would have also been building a safety net and a support system for rainy days such as this, when the donations of wealthy entrepreneurs are most needed.
