Opportunities Never End

If Africa is going to emerge economically, Ghana may be the place to watch. "All eyes are on Ghana," says Yaw Nyarko, vice provost of New York University and native Ghanaian. "It's like peeking into the future for all of Africa." Rich in resources, Ghana once lured the first European merchants and was also the first sub-Saharan nation to enjoy post-World War II independence, in 1957.

A vibrant democracy for 13 years, with 5% real economic growth annually but still billions of dollars in debt, the West African nation stands to be a poster child for the Commission for Africa, the big aid-for-reform plan being pitched to the industrialized nations by the newly reelected British Labour team of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It is also one of 17 countries selected for aid by George W. Bush's similar endeavor, the Millennium Challenge Corp.

Yet, when he ponders the prospect, Ghanaian entrepreneur Roland Akosah is not happy. Squeezing his large, 47-year-old frame into a seat in a coffee shop in the capital, Accra, Akosah sighs heavily.

"We have a horrible reputation," he says. "Not only do people think we are panhandlers, we are panhandlers. It's up to us to improve our own economy."

Akosah is doing his part. An M.B.A. from Wharton, he left a promising career in the U.S. that included jobs at IBM and United Technologies to return to his homeland and start his investment shop, ENO International, in 2000. ENO is a backward acronym for Opportunities Never End. lt has raised capital in Ghana and the U.S. to put into pharmaceuticals and other enterprises and is buying up citrus groves in the Ashanti region, in the country's interior, toward building an orange juice plant.

Goods production is Akosah's recipe for a new Ghana. Other Ghanaians have been lured home with different enthusiasms. Yale-educated Kenneth Ofori-Atta left Salomon Brothers and started Databank, a money management firm with $33 million that takes deposits as small as $5. Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire before age 30, founded Western-style Ashesi University in Accra.

All are bootstrap sorts. All understand there's a lot of history to live down. A clean slate for the nation would make the task easier, says Akosah, but what will get Ghana ahead has to come from those who want to get wealthy along with the nation. "If we show we can improve our economy from the inside," he says, "maybe Western capitalists will eventually believe us."

The Blair-Brown plan for Africa, unveiled in a 464-page report in March, asks for 100% debt cancelation for countries that need it, $25 billion more a year in donor aid by 2010 and another $25 billion by 2015. It also calls for ending rich-nation agricultural subsidies and for tearing down barriers that keep African goods away from developed markets. For Ghana, which nets $44 per capita in development and other official aid (on Africa's high end), this matters.

Debt repayment drained $503 million from Ghana's treasury in 2004. No doubt its 20 million citizens would rather be spending public monies to shore up roads, rail, the electrical grid and the Tema port that was once the pride of West Africa. Like much of Ghana's infrastructure, the port fell into disrepair in the 1970s. Sadly, infrastructure upkeep is not the kind of thing that help to Africa in recent times has bought (see box, below).

The British colony then known as Gold Coast, brought to independence 48 years ago by the messianic Kwame Nkrumah, was the most blessed of the era's new states. Nkrumah's socialistic corruption, paradigmatic of Africa's modern history, began to bleed the land of its agricultural and trading advantages. Years of tumult followed his overthrow in 1966, and when the killing stopped, under military strongman Jerry Rawlings, economic mismanagement continued.

With the economy collapsing in the early 1980s, Rawlings went to Libya and Moscow with a tin cup. He was turned down. He knocked on the World Bank's door, and the answer was "Come on down!" The bank turned on its spigot.

One example of how that worked out: The World Bank lent money to Ghana starting in 1983, to rehabilitate several state-owned gold mines and kick-start them to grow on their own. But the price of gold didn't cooperate, and 12 years and $100 million later it became obvious that digging the gold would cost far more than it would bring in. That's one big crumb in what eventually became Ghana's $7.5 billion debt mountain.

Oxford-educated President John Kufuor, reelected to his second term in January, has already paid down a billion of that load as part of an economic reform mandate. But he knows that growth will require the right conditions for entrepreneurs. That usually means lowering taxes, cutting bureaucratic red tape (i.e., telling a domineering civil servant class to lay off) and taming inflation.

"It is not the West's responsibility to save Africa," avers Kufuor, "It is our own." At the same time he is not going to turn down any help. Even before any Blair-Brown scheme, aid accounts for 30% of the government's budget. (Kufuor could free up more money if he'd slash his own bureaucracy. He has 70 ministers who report to him.)

Inflation, though halved since Kufuor took office in 2001, is still a miserable 12%. Per capita income seems glued at $440, which in terms of buying power is where it was 30 years ago. Electrical brownouts are still a problem periodically. By next year, however, the region should see the West African Gas Pipeline become operational. It will carry gas from Nigeria, reducing energy costs for Ghana, which has little gas or oil reserves of its own.

The president sounds resolved to act, just like his returned talent--whatever the outside world does. "We are trying to usher in the golden age of business," he says.