Damning Nkrumah is erroneous
February 20, 2010
Ho, Feb 20, GNA - A lawyer and development analyst has observed that damning the works and policies of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President, without recourse to the circumstances of his times was erroneous.
Dr. Yao Graham said that undoubtedly, many of Nkrumah's ideas about development still ricocheted today as plausible and the only way out of Ghana's economic doldrums.
Dr Graham was delivering a lecture on "Efforts of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People's Party (CPP) to transform the economy, lessons, difficulties and mistakes," as part of the "Campus Lecture" series in the 10 regions of Ghana, to mark the centenary of Dr Nkrumah.
He said Dr Nkrumah's policies of the state being both an investor and regulator, which informed the setting up of state enterprises, met the expectations of leading development economists of the time.
Dr. Graham said Dr Nkrumah did not dissipate the 200 million pounds left by the colonialists but used it for the accelerated development of skills of the people through the expansion of educational opportunities, building of more health facilities and other infrastructure.
Dr. Graham said the success of Dr Nkrumah's policies were tampered by the dependence on cocoa for foreign cash, poor borrowing terms, low productivity, and the failure to bolster the small-holders in agriculture who were the cog around which the economy revolved.
He said when cocoa price dipped, it created difficulties for the Nkrumah vision and the attendant shortages imported foods created a restive population which opened up to manipulation.
Dr Graham said regarding the conception of Dr Nkrumah as a socialist, who did not encourage private enterprise, Ghana's first President had always demonstrated that he was an avowed proponent of the mixed economy, and that during his rule, no private enterprise was nationalized and that companies taken over were valued and bought.
Dr Graham, who is also a member of Socialist International, observed that comparisons of Ghana having done poorly compared to Malaysia, South-Korea and Thailand among others were not contextual.
He said those Asian Economic Tigers, had completely different historical circumstances, which presented them with a higher pedestal to launch their economic development and also had massive support from the West.
Dr Graham said what Ghana needed economic transformation to correct the relativities that had hindered the economic development of the country all these years.
He said the beneficiaries of the current system in which the distribution of wealth and opportunities were grossly uneven had vested interests in maintaining the status-quo.
Mr Bernard Mornah, Secretary on the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Planning Committee, said Africa should get reparation for the slave trade under which Africans were captured and sold into slavery to propel the economies of Europe and the Americas.
Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, Chairman of the Committee, said the Campus Lectures had a "twofold significance - to elaborate the ideas, vision, the practice and record of Nkrumah and his times" and it focused on the youth.
GNA