The Last of the Trilogy

President Mills,

I know it's been a while. Finding the time has been a challenge but I promised 3 letters, so 3 letters it is; here is my last letter to you. Sir, this letter will concentrate on infrastructure, specifically on transport infrastructure.

In 2007, an agreement was signed with Kampac to develop parts of the existing system and to lay down some new tracks as well. I'm unqualified to comment on the technical aspects of the agreement, and I've not taken much interest in that. What bothers me is that we do not seem to have an integrated transport strategy which this railway project would dovetail into.

I urge you to:

1. Read the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II paper if you've not read it, and I mean read the document yourself. There are some good things in there. In truth, it is an overgrown version of the business plans that our entrepreneurs (I prefer this word to the usual "businessman") prepare just to acquire bank loans. I doubt we ever intended to implement most of it. I may be wrong but I doubt that you will find sector-specific implementation documents that would make real the intentions recorded in the GPRS, including that on transport infrastructure (page 143).
   
2. Review the specific objectives of our transport strategy, if we have one. Presumably, how the transport sector facilitates economic activity and the nation's territorial integrity will be in there somewhere;
3. How those objectives will be achieved especially the principal implementors (identity, capabilities and structure), timelines, routes and ease of transition from one transport mode to another (hubs?).
4. Give some thought to financing of capital and recurrent expenditures.
   

I digress a bit at this point. I believe the planning for the Inland Ports initiative (Boankra) started when you were Vice President. Since then, we've built a shiny, modernist administrative office at Boankra. That part of the land where we were supposed to build the port facilities remain verdant, the envy of native herds of goats. As I understand it, this facility was supposed to serve importers and exporters in the Kumasi and beyond, so that they would not have to come to Tema and Takoradi to transact business. Customs would transport the goods to and from Boankra and hence offer a convenient service to traders in Kumasi and beyond. We know that since the Ivorian civil war, we have captured a significant portion of the import trade for Mali and Burkina Faso.

What if we really developed our rail system from T'di and Tema, through Boankra to Hamile on the Burkina border (as 'intended' by Kampac) to facilitate this inland port system and keep the trucks off our roads? You could throw in 2 more ports at Tamale and Hamile. I suspect Ghana would secure a lot more of the landlocked West African trade if Malian and Burkina truckers didn't have to drive the entire length of Ghana, less accidents and longer-lasting roads.

If we are really ambitious, we could let that Western line go up through Sunyani and Techiman, through Bamboi up to Wa and Tumu. We would then complement this with an eastern corridor from Tema to Akosombo, by river to Kete Krachi and again by rail to Yendi, Tamale and Bolgatanga. You could build some redundancy into the system by linking the two corridors at Tamale and Bamboi and then again at Bolga and Tumu. The southern system already has some linkages. Regarding the river transport, if my understanding is correct, the major obstacle is submerged trees. Instead of having commercial considerations as the overriding purpose of the harvesting of these trees, can we also clear 2 corridors, one northbound and the other southbound? We could build mini harbours en route.

We could derive revenue from passenger traffic and freight. Task your economists to estimate the multiplier effect as transportation eases and the likely effect on economic activity. This almost door-to-door delivery/pick-up of imports/exports by Customs should be great for trade. Then there is internal trade! We could open the rail network to entities willing to run railcars of their own for passenger or freight, and pay rent for the access.

These are suggestions only, they require study but I'm confident that there is some merit in these suggestions.

2 suggestions regarding roads:

1. The most important highway in Ghana, the Accra - Kumasi road is a disgrace! Let's get a dual carriage highway, 4 or 6 lanes in either direction. Segregate the inner 2 or 3 lanes in either direction as Express lanes, with concrete walls sufficiently high to discourage climbing. It may have 3 mid-journey exits only - Apedwa, Nkawkaw and Konongo. Ban trucks from the express lanes. Any allowed vehicle would have to pay GHC20.00 minimum and maintain speed between 100kmph and 150kmph. Trucks and others who prefer may use the outer lanes, pay much less in tolls and stop where ever they please (except on the road).
   
2. We must eliminate concrete islands in the middle of dual carriage avenues (in town) and redesign intersections for more intelligent traffic management. The number of lanes dedicated to opposite directions must not necessarily be symmetrical every hour of the day, or? On a 6-lane dual carriageway, 4 lanes could be dedicated to heavy traffic at rush hour in the morning in the required direction and 2 lanes for light traffic. This would then be reversed in the evening. Imagine Independence Avenue with only double solid white lines down the middle. In the mornings, when the heavy traffic is towards Liberation Circle, we could use plastic cones to co-opt one lane on the Tetteh Quashie-bound side for the heavy traffic. In the evening rush hour, vice versa. So the direction of traffic on 2 inner lanes would be determined by the need for additonal capacity in either direction.

Prez, communication links determine the health of an economy because that is what enables human interaction, of which economic transactions form a subset. If telecom links are your nerves and hormones, our transportation system are your circulatory system. Speak to your doctor about the importance of a healthy circulatory system at your next appointment. If our economy was human, it would have died from a massive stroke ages ago!

President Mills, your presidency is not a destination, it is an avenue to performance. Godspeed to you.

Your ex-student,

Yaw

Letter to the President-Elect II

Preso-Elect,

I’m very happy to write you my second letter. I’m fine. I hope you are fine too. I forgot to volunteer as one of your Mystery Shoppers in my first letter. I’ll bear my own costs. I don’t intend to do it entirely free though; please honour me with one of the left over JAK medals at the next awards ceremony, and I mean one of the £30k medals. We ask for the star so I may inherit the clouds, no? So I ask for the best medal but any of the (slightly lesser) ones will do.

On medals for yourself, I give you the words of Cato the Elder: “After I’m dead, I’d rather have men ask why I have no monument than why I have one”. ‘Nuff said!

But let me move on. I realize that this business of advising you is a growth industry with very low barriers to entry. You’ve only seen a trickle so far, expect a deluge. Much of the advice will recommend spending on education, health, infrastructure, etc. Today, I intend to comment briefly on taxes.

“Widening the tax net” is a perennial preoccupation of our revenue agencies, in word but not in deed. The excuse is that our poor address system makes it difficult to find economic agents with chargeable income. This must be very familiar to you as an ex-commish. It is strange, though, that when these good taxmen need to find these phantom entities for some personal end, then, it’s duck soup, simple! Ever heard of a taxman who couldn’t find a good mechanic for his car when he needs one? How does he do it? He asks those who know where to find the mechanic.

The reality is that our formal and informal economies do not exist separately, mutually exclusively. They transact business together daily and the formal economy keeps records. If we are willing to use what we have to get what we want, then we must use information available in the formal sector to track tax evaders hiding in the informal labyrinth.

I know I’ve already asked for a medal as reward for my earlier ideas but here I go again. I’ve filed my tax returns religiously for the past 10yrs. If you offer me a 5% rebate on my tax and guarantee that the cheque will be in the post, I’ll give you up-to-date details of the top 10 suppliers to my household. Fair deal? If you require the same of other households and businesses (no rebate for them), you’ll have all the info you need to track down tax evaders. The only problem then becomes your ability to process the info and track them down.

Your government will also be in the money if you insist that importers show tax clearance certificates every time. Currently, they can get away with payment of 1% of the CIF value, presumably as a deposit on their taxes. They then vanish into the informal warren till the next consignment arrives.

Prof, you know, much better than most that we must begin to wean ourselves off foreign aid. Ghanaians must begin to pay our way through life, to assess our choices in terms of affordability. The nation can afford more when it collects all that it’s owed, no?

Yours sincerely,

Yaw

Letter to the President-Elect I

Dear Prof Mills,

I'd be most surprised if you remember me from your Company Law class of 1996 at the UGBS. I, on the other hand, remember you well; I even remember your promise to continue teaching after your NDC won the 1996 election. It is said that you were assigned a lot of responsibility so that may be why you couldn't remain a teacher as you intended. Anyway, I dropped the course after you left for some reason I can't remember now.

Your former student would like to share a few ideas with you in 3 short letters, including this one, if you don't mind. These won’t be lengthy reads and you probably know about all the stuff that I intend to write about anyway. You may consider these letters as reminders from your P.A., if you will.

I start with a very simple request: verify what you hear. You have been chosen to provide a service to the people of Ghana, the service of leadership. Your success should go beyond statistics and reflect in the lives of your customers (aka Ghanaians). Your success should be both discernible and measurable. If you attempt to pass off mediocre performance as success too advanced for the ordinary man to comprehend or feel, you’ll guarantee yourself a painful arse-kicking out of the Jubilee House in 4 yrs.

Those selected to help you serve at your pleasure. It may be in their interests to keep that fragile pleasure alive by constant drips of good news from time to time. Never forget those words made famous by your mentor, JJ, at his handover to your predecessor: “beware of fan-fool respect”. When reports of success flow your way like Madoff’s annual 15% return to investors, without fail, verify!

With your permission, I’d like to suggest one way to verify what you hear.

Market researchers have used a particular tool to good effect. It’s called Mystery Shopping. You may read about this tool here. I suggest that you recruit 3 or so associates, either secretly or with the help of your Chief of Staff.

When you are told that the number of days to register a business has been reduced from 120 days to 80, send them to register businesses and report the experiences to you. When the Ghana Free Zones Board say they assess applications in 2 weeks, send your secret corps to verify. I firmly believe you can keep them occupied for the whole of your 4 years in office. This is akin to a manager using the grapevine in his organisation to keep himself informed, as you must have done in your several years at the IRS.

The benefits are self-evident. An informed President can better evaluate his government’s performance and do what he has to do. And Prof, you have a lot to do!

Yours sincerely,

Yaw