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Harnessing the
Experiences of Ghanaian Professionals in the Diaspora for the
Socio-Economic Stability of the Emerging Ghana
By: Kwaku A. Danso, PhD
Back to Part One
Part Two
The
good side of the coin is that these children of Ghana have never
forgotten their motherland! There is not a funeral held in
America or elsewhere outside Ghana where Ghanaian discussion
will not come back on Ghana, and inevitably how our nation is
being managed, and hence politics will enter the conversation.
Ghanaians love their nation! And that is the greatest blessing
we have as a nation that has held us together.
In the late 1980s, a World Bank report had indicated remittances
of moneys to Ghana from her children overseas had reached $350
million. I know a friend whose name most of you know, who took
advantage of that and is now rich. In the 2007/2008 Bank of
Ghana report, that figure had jumped to $6.9 Billion in the nine
months ending September. That translates to over $8 Billion per
year. In other words, remittances by Ghanaians overseas to Ghana
far exceeded all FDI or Foreign Direct Investment, and in fact
constitutes about 50% of the total Gross National Income of
Ghana for 2008, which was reported as $16 Billion.
In my four decades overseas in America, I have met, interacted
with, and made friends with people from China, India, Korea,
Philippines and other part of Asia and South East Asia, as well
as Europe and America. I can say emphatically that I have never
met any group of people who love their country and have more
pride for their country than Ghanaians!
4. The Discipline, Motivation and Love
Many in Ghana may think a Visa to go overseas comes with a
guarantee of a key to the treasuries of the white man. No! One
cannot earn enough and have a disposable income to send to Ghana
if one is not being paid well and managing finances well. To
earn adequate money overseas,
(a) one has to have a decent education and good job,
(b) one has to have specifically needed skills that pay well,
and live modestly to save money and send some home; or
(c) one has to work double job at the "ordinary jobs". For those
working unskilled jobs, it takes more sacrifices with room-mates
in city centers to achieve half what their educated colleagues
do. Education helps in income most of the time.
To be financially successful enough to help others demands
skills, and usually above average qualifications and
competencies of our people overseas. What helped Ghanaians to
succeed so well overseas in the post Independence era? One can
answer that the success of Ghanaians overseas, in helping their
nation now, even if not returning home, has come from three
things:
a. Discipline, b. Motivation, and c. Love for nation
Discipline has helped Ghanaians who travelled overseas to take
their studies very seriously. In the four decades I have been
overseas and assisted and mentored nephews and nieces and scores
of other non-family Ghanaians, I have never seen a Ghanaian set
his mind on any field of study and unable to accomplish it. Can
one conclude that we are a people of discipline, then?
My answer may be No. It is motivation. I give detailed analysis
of this in my book.
Motivation is the key here for Ghanaians. We are a highly
motivated people, and as much as some may not know, some of us
must owe this culture to the transformational leadership of the
man who led us to Independence and told us in the olden days
that we were equal to any in the world.
There are however some critical missing elements beyond
motivation hindering us from high achievement as a people.
These are:
(a) The culture and the science of working together, and
(b) The discipline of working for or in an organization or
government. We like to build our own water reservoirs and power
generators, but cannot put moneys together to obtain reliable
services, without one person taking advantage of the moneys.
When you ask a Ghanaian to show the accounts, he asks you "Don't
you trust me?" and gets angry. It takes time and patience to
overcome such culture. Time will not allow me to elaborate on
these. Lastly is
(c) The Love. Love is missing, if you examine the above! We have
not moved from the individual and family level to the next level
of the hierarchy as American Prof. Abraham Maslov once taught.
Love for self and for family are only at Grade 2 of the five
steps. The others are (3) Love and concern for Community, then
(4) Love for Nation, and lastly (5) Love for the World at large.
The Great Chinese teacher Confucius once taught this as the
different levels of happiness. Time does not allow elaboration
but let us examine the following:
5. Net Return on Investment and the Parent -Child Relationships
-
Having said all that, where is the return on the investment
Ghana made in educating our children? Why are so many still left
overseas? We invested hundreds and thousands of millions! What
is the return?
Yes, Ghanaians are sending money to Ghana! Over $8 Billion in
2008. This is no more a hidden secret. The international
community is aware of this economic factor they had not factored
in earlier. Is that why we sent our children overseas or they
left, to send money home? Maybe not. Ask any of them who left
and over 80% will tell you it was for further Educational
aspirations. That means the search for knowledge. Are these
children of Ghana, now men with their families, coming home
soon? How do they share their knowledge with the organization
called the nation of Ghana? Is there an electronic pipeline we
can use to siphon some of that knowhow and experience? How many
Ghanaians, in Ghana, are really experts in such areas as
Electronics Engineering, Computer Sciences, Nuclear Engineering,
Petroleum Engineering, to name a few? Do we have enough to meet
the national demand? In case you think we have enough engineers,
let me share with you that one company such as Kodak at one time
had 3,000 Physicists. Do we know how many Physicists, Chemists,
Bio-Chemists, Computer Scientists, Software Developers, Brain
and Heart Surgeons, X-Ray technicians, Mechanical Engineers,
Electronic Engineers Ghana will need for us to catch up?
Instead of thinking we cannot pay them, why not think of the
level of productivity they bring to the nation.
Productivity is the average amount of economic output per
person. Every skilled person or employee produces so many times
their income or expenses spent on them by their employer. If we
hire 100 Bio-Chemists at $100,000 each per year, that total
comes to only $10 million per year. In 3-5 years, I can
guarantee you Ghana will discover some new drugs, medicines, and
make our contribution to the world and earn a tremendous return.
Why should the "kote-den-den" medicine called Viagra be an
American or Western discovery, when or herbalists have claimed
the secret for centuries. Are we prepared to invest in our own
people or kind? Are the policy formulation or our leaders only
self centered or to serve the nation? Or there is an element of
jealousy and envy towards the Ghanaians who studied and worked
overseas. Do they want us to sweat and "toil" the way they claim
they toiled during the starving days of the early 1980s?
How do we resolve this impasse of educating our people to high
school for 12 to 16 years so they go overseas and work for
others?
Human Psychology shows that it takes love for parents to reap
the benefits expected in old age. Any parent who alienates his
children during the growth period may find him or herself
isolated from the grown-up children. Those who totally ignore
their children should not expect to have their children take
care of them by tradition anymore. In other words, there is a
sense of responsibility on both parents and children.
The answer is really simple: For the Ghanaian overseas, granted
many left on their own and not on Scholarship, there is lost
love that needs to be re-awakened from the parent to the child.
When our children grew up, they were required to take care of
their own children, and also expected to take care of parents.
We heard this so many times from Ghanaian diplomats: "Return
home to help your country".
Does anybody know how much it costs to ship one's household of
goods by ship?
India set up a fund to finance 95% of any export oriented
businesses for their citizens to return. What does Ghana have?
Just 45% to 150% on the imported vehicles of our children
returning home?
What does it take for a Bio-Chemist to set up doing his "own
business".
Or Electronics or Computer Scientist or Engineer, on return?
Perhaps set up a Container store at East Legon?
Do our leaders want Foreigners to come to Ghana, obtain
guaranteed financing from or government, and then hire us back
home? How many job openings do we really have in Ghana ?
I leave these for us to ponder, but I assert strongly that as a
parent, the nation of Ghana has to have the responsibility to
attract her children back with any carrot necessary! America was
very good at that and recruited many German, Russian and other
Scientists to build their nation.
Question is: Do our leaders have enough love for nation to love
those out of sight? Or their plates are too full as it is with
the high unemployment now, as Ghana closed down all our
factories and now importing everything on earth we need!
Everything we talk about can only be done by those empowered to
lead and guide us, and I am referring to the Role of Leadership.
6. The Role of Leadership
In 2007 I wrote a book called "Leadership Concepts and the Role
of Government in Africa: The Case of Ghana". The book was
finally published by Xlibris of Pennsylvania, USA. I ended up
having my book edited and final publishing communications done
with people not in Ghana but in the Philippines, all through the
Internet. In Ghana today, our Internet speed for a Ghc65 per
month fee, is ten times slower than a similar Internet Service
that costs $25 per month in the USA or UK. To get speeds similar
to what is enjoyed in the US, one has to pay over $400 per
month,, and the question is: is the service reliable? The Answer
is a Big No!
7. Bringing all Together to build our nation out of Love
To have any meaningful impact on socio-economic development of
our nation, we must learn to manage resources and we must learn
to have love for our nation. I made the following statement and
listed some core critical requirements for effective leadership
and performance strategies for the management of our nation of
Ghana, and I offer the following quotes:
It becomes the responsibility of the academicians from these
developing nations to highlight the relevance of effective and
proper management and leadership in delivering performance in
their own countries. This will help contribute to the world body
of knowledge beyond travelers' tales usually provided by Western
journalists. This includes knowledge management, organizational
learning, effective governance, environmental scanning, and
competitive analysis. (Danso, 200, p.57)
Under the subtitle "Strategies for Effective Management of Ghana
to Promote the welfare of the people", I quote:
For proper management of a complex organization or nation such
as Ghana, any leader, no matter how charismatic or kind hearted,
will need to use knowledge and strategies that have been tried
and tested in other higher-echelon environments, and adapt them
to his or her own culture. This will include knowledge
management and creating learning organizations, effective
corporate governance with several practical issues of management
and leadership. (Danso, 2007, p.59)
Under the subtitle: "Effectiveness and Practical Issues of
Governance" and "Some Practical Issues in Leadership and
Management" I have listed the following items pp.61-71):
i. Organizational and Environmental Scanning - (the ability to
use information in the modern world to succeed).
ii. Effectiveness of Organizational Communications
iii. Organizational Development iv. Effective Strategic
Decision-Making
iv. Ethical and legal Issues vi. Crisis Prevention and Risk
Management
vii. Human Resource Strategies.
viii. Conflict Management and Resolution
Change is very difficult and complicated to implement and
manage, as Harvard Prof. John Kotter points out (Kotter, 2002).
How does Ghana move forward for real, beyond the political
promises?
One political scientist in Canada and some members of the Ghana
Leadership (GLU) Forum have suggested that Ghana fell behind
others in the post-independence socio-economic development race,
not because of lack of educated people, but due to greed and
selfishness. I leave a few questions for us all:
How can a nation hope to achieve socio-economic stability when
habits have been ingrained for so long condoning mismanagement,
corruption, greed, and total inability and ineptitude of
leadership to enforce basic laws and put feet down and punish
incompetence and crimes!
Will anybody have time and energy to criticize our culture of
accepting second-class living of open gutters, unsanitary and
dusty atmosphere, burning trash, potholes, and hold the men in
office accountable, but the people who have lived overseas for
so long and will not take it!
Can we sincerely develop our nation like other emerging nations
have done, attaining manufacturing competence, understanding the
complexities of global marketplace, providing employment for the
thousands and millions of our people in the modern age, using
modern tools and equipment in farming and food production, in
communications, database development, planning, road and housing
construction, and competing strategically for our share of the
world's resources without the help of our valuable human
resources overseas?
How do we attract them? Can we do it with the current love-hate
relationship between those in government and those living
abroad? Some of us have to get Visas to enter our own country!
Are we crazy!! (as Americans might put it).
And lastly, can you lead a nation without extreme care and
concern for the people and with selfless love, ethical
character, and motivation to put in all you have to instigate
and inspire change as described by Profs. Bass and Steidlmeier
(1999) in the definition of Transformational Leadership! Can we
do it with the present system of politics we have?
Your answers are as good as mine.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested and argued that
politicians are paid enough through the amount of respect and
adulation they receive from society, and hence should not
receive pay. I leave that to higher powers and minds than mine
to ponder! You know the truth. Let us do the right things by our
people!
I hope I have shared a little today and we have a chance to meet
again. Thanks for listening to me.
CONTACT: Kwaku A. Danso, M. Eng., PhD (Org. & Management
/Leadership)
k.danso@comcast.net
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