The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Association of Banks (GAB), John Awuah, has reignited a critical debate on the nation’s economic soul.
In a candid post that has sparked significant conversation, Mr. Awuah isn’t calling for more ribbon-cutting ceremonies at new airports or stadiums.
Instead, he is issuing a challenge to leadership to stop the waste and start the factories.
For years, political success in Ghana has often been measured by infrastructure, the visible, tangible monuments of governance like markets and sporting arenas.
But according to Awuah, these are not the engines of true prosperity.
”Progress for Ghanaians will never lie in the building of stadia, markets, and airports,” Awuah stated, echoing a sentiment he has maintained throughout the Nana Addo administration.
His argument is visceral, you can’t eat an airport, and a stadium doesn’t provide a career path for a generation of desperate youth.
Real progress, he argues, is felt at the dinner table, not at a departure gate.
Awuah’s roadmap for a “visible, touchable, and transformational” Ghana hinges on one word he repeated for emphasis: “prioritise.”
He maintains that manufacturing is the only sector capable of absorbing the mass of young people currently clamoring for opportunities.
While official speeches often mention “economic restructuring,” Awuah insists that true resilience only comes when a country produces what it consumes.
By diverting “waste” and pumping financial support directly to entrepreneurs, he believes the country could see a radical shift.
Perhaps the most provocative part of Awuah’s message is the link between industrialisation and “political hygiene.”
He suggests that the current political landscape relies on a surplus of unemployed youth available for “foot soldiering.”
If these young people were busy building economic lives through manufacturing, they would be unavailable for political maneuvering.
Consequently, politicians would be forced to work for votes through policy rather than patronage, allowing the economy to flourish as a result of a productive, independent workforce.
As the head of the umbrella body for commercial banks in Ghana, Awuah’s perspective carries the weight of the financial sector.
His message is a clarion call to move away from the “politics of the spectacle” and toward the “economics of the factory floor.”
”If we lose the manufacturing argument,” Awuah warns, “we lose everything.”
By 1960news.com
