 Hello and welcome to this joint production between People's Dispatch and Pan-African Television. Today, we are going to be talking about Ghana, a country which has faced a severe economic crisis for many months now. Inflation has been sky-high, prices have been rising, especially essentials. In the meantime, the government has now, that is on the 13th of December, signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a loan of three billion US dollars. Of course, the deal has to be approved by the IMF's board in Washington, but this is Ghana's 18th deal with the IMF. And we do know that Ghana has not loaned a number of countries across the world, caught in the IMF web, so to speak. Every country has its own unique situations, but each many countries are also quite similar. So to talk more about this, we have with us a very special guest, Casey Pratt Jr., General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. So first of all, my question is about this deal itself before we go into the deeper economic questions. How do you think Ghanaians are responding to the news of this deal? It has been in the works for a long time, a lot of discussion about it. What has been the response now that it's been finalized? Well, nobody believes that this is the solution to the hydrohydride problems that confront the Ghanaian people. The President himself doesn't believe that there's an answer to the economic crisis. Nobody believes that. He himself has been talking about the need to fundamentally restructure the Ghanaian economy because he sees the problem as a structural problem. The opposition has insisted that there is no solution to the Ghanaian problem, and so on. Now, what is happening is that something has to be done. They quite don't know what to be done, so anything must be done in order to deceive the people. And that's why they come up with this so-called deal, which is going to give us $3 billion over a three-year period, and for which the government has to implement a number of very, very harsh measures and so on. Now, for me, one of the things which is most significant is the fact that this is the 18th time that Ghana is going to the IMF. We've gone there 18 times, and every time we go there, the problems remain unsolved. In 1983, we went to the IMF and the World Bank, and we reached a staff level agreement as we have reached today. Eventually, the board of the IMF and the World Bank approved some arrangement for the structural adjustment program and so on. What was the effect? In less than three months, 300,000 workers lost their jobs. We had to privatize more than 400 state enterprises. In the end, cumulatively, the Ghanaian city has been devalued by more than 30,000 percent. We privatized social services like health and education and so on. I mean, had clearly very disastrous consequences for people. That model has not changed. That is the new model, new liberal path to economic development always comes with more disaster, more hardship for the population, and we are not expecting anything new. Now, for us to reach this stage, government has to take a number of measures. One of the measures was to increase the value added tax, by 2.5 percent, what they're about. Government is insisting on what it calls a debt exchange program, which simply means that interest on government loans, loans the government has taken from the private sector from individuals and so on, will not be paid over a period of time. We're going to have devastating consequences on the pension schemes of workers in the public sector and so on. In addition to that, there's a freeze on public sector employment, the unemployment problems are not going to get solved and so on. So people are generally very, very apprehensive. People know that this is not a solution. They know it's going to be about more hardship and it appears that sections of the society are mobilizing for mass action. The Trade Union Congress, for example, has threatened to embarrass upon industrial action. The Trade Union Congress of Ghana has a movement of 500,000 workers. The Ghana Medical Association has threatened. Ghana Registered Nurses Association has threatened. Various teacher organizations are threatened. It appears that if care is not taken, this country will be grinding to a halt But in this context, every time the IMF comes, the discussion about the IMF comes in various countries. The question everyone asks is how do we get there? And we know that there's been a trajectory of policies. You mentioned part of the trajectory where earlier agreements with the IMF actually seem to have caused, you know, it seems to have started off a process which has brought Ghana today. But one thing I believe you also in one of our earlier interviews, you talked about which is the fact that Ghana is a vast reserve of resources, some very valuable resources at this point of time. So often a question asked is that despite all these resources, how did the country end up in a situation like where it is today? So what would the answer be? Well, no struggle for national independence. We had three clear objectives. First of all, we wanted the opportunity to determine our political structure, our political future and so on. We also wanted an opportunity, therefore, to elect our own leaders. But in addition to that, we wanted to struggle, you know, to break from the colonial your concern, primarily because we wanted to own our own resources and wanted to exploit these resources for the benefit of our people. These objectives of the independence movement have not been achieved. So we have built a new colonial economy. We still make it impossible for us to own our resources and we still make it impossible for us to exploit these resources for benefit. But you're looking at a country like Ghana with a population of about 30 million people, 31 million people. And the facts are that Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa in the world, the whole world. Ghana is the sixth largest producer of gold in the whole world, you know. And recently, Ghana became the first, the largest producer of gold in Africa. Ghana has bauxites, iron, it has oil, it has gas, you know. It has vast amounts of water resources, rivers, crisscross in the country and emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. We are bordered in the South, actually, by the Atlantic Ocean. It does not make any sense that a country with this enormous amount of resources is not able to feed itself. A country which exists in the tropics, which actually lies on the equator, is not able to feed itself. It simply doesn't make sense, you know. And it doesn't make sense when we are told that gold resources can be used, you know, to back up the national currency. Russia has used it effectively over the last couple of months and so on. And yet our currency is one of the worst performing currencies in the world. That doesn't simply make sense. What is happening is that all of these resources that we have are currently not owned by the people of Ghana and they are certainly not being exploited for the benefit of Ghana. And one of the areas we can look at is gold. I mean, if you look at the gold industry in Ghana, you would marvel. First of all, we are giving huge tax holidays to gold mining companies. I mean, recently, Dr. Sambrona, who was the first Chief Executive of Angkor Gold Ashanti, actually told us that Ghana has no interest in the largest gold mine in the country, one of the biggest gold mines in Africa, Angkor Gold Ashanti. We have no interest at all, you understand. And we have also signed very ridiculous agreements with some of these mining companies. And one of the most ridiculous agreements we signed with the mining companies is what they call the foreign exchange retention agreement. Now, under this agreement, mining companies are free to retain sometimes up to 98% of the value of gold exported from Ghana outside the Ghanaian economy. Why would we not rally into this kind of trouble? We certainly will be rallying into these kinds of trouble if we do not take measures to own these resources and to exploit these resources for our own benefit. Now, again, I think it's important for us to understand in clear terms that the primary objective of private capital is to double itself. The primary objective of private capital is to make more profit. Private capital is not interested in improving nutrition. It only improves nutrition or contributes to improving nutrition if that would increase its capacity to make profit. Private capital is not interested in improving the standard of education if it is not going to contribute to maximizing profit and so on. So the profit motive itself is a disincentive to the mobilization of our people to resolve the concrete problems that confront us. And I think that's important for us to begin to move away from this capitalist mode of development to move away from this neoliberal agenda which increasingly continues to publish our people. Absolutely. And this context is also just quickly wanted to ask you about debt because that seems to be one of the factors which is cited in many reports as a crucial problem that is affecting Ghana. Could you also tell me a bit about why the country seems to be in such massive levels of debt? Well, the levels of debt are shocking. We also want to extend that now we need to expand more than 100% of total national revenue on three-line items, debt servicing, debt repayment, and public sector movements. And these three items require about 120% of total national revenue. That's an impossibility, you understand. So the whole keeps getting deeper and deeper and we are still digging, we are still acquiring more loans. Under this so-called agreement to the IMF, there's supposed to be giving us $3 billion in a period of three years but it's not a gift. We have to pay for it, you understand. So we are just increasing the debt. Now how come that the debt keeps growing? The debt keeps growing because we are not engaged in any sensible production. We are not producing anything. We are importing toothpicks. We are the elite in our society no longer drink Ghanaian water. They import Ghanaian water. We are importing our clothes. We are importing vehicles. We are virtually importing everything that our people depend on. That's not production, okay? So the pressure on the local currency increases all the time because we need more dollars to bring in biscuits. We need dollars to bring in soft drinks. We need dollars to bring in sakehand clothing and so on. There's massive pressure on the city and we are not producing anything because so anytime the city goes under pressure we borrow in order to strengthen the city, you understand. Anytime we need more rice, we borrow to produce rice and rice production is one interesting area. This country, all the 16 regions of Ghana have tremendous potential for producing rice, you understand. And the nutritionists even tell us that locally produced rice is far more nutritional than imported polished rice. And yet we are spending billions of dollars per annum bringing in rice. It simply doesn't make sense when we have favorable conditions in the country for the cultivation of rice, you know. And it goes with all others. I mean, we are in the tropics, okay? The rainfall pattern is good. We are okay. You know that we are the third largest importer. Third largest importer of tomato paste from Germany. When we have better conditions in our country for the cultivation of tomatoes than Germany. Guinea fowls, which means the Ghanaian delicacy. I mean, it's a fowl which has very little fat, you know, and so on. Ghana has not become dependent on Denmark for the importation of Guinea fowls, you understand. We are importing eggs. We are importing tomatoes from sunny, sunny, arid lands and so on. It simply doesn't make sense. We built the Acosta Wu Hydroelectric Project in the early 1960s and created the largest man-made lake in the world, okay? The water river flows all the way from Burkina Faso to all parts of Ghana, creates the largest man-made lake in the middle, and pours into the Atlantic Ocean. And we are importers of fish. We are bordered on the South by the Atlantic Ocean, and we are importing fish. Simply doesn't make sense. This country needs to begin to think about how to utilize the many resources it has to address the concrete problems of its people, and thereby limit its dependence, especially on the dollar and foreign currency, in order to solve its problems of food, its problems of access to housing, and so on, you understand. Now, if you look at the rate at which prices are escalating, it is completely crazy. I mean, within the last six months, the price of petroleum products have more than doubled, okay? The staple that is eaten by the Accra people, the kinky, used to serve for one city a ball. Within the last 12 months, it is now selling for five cities a ball. It's increased 500%. How can the people cope with this crisis? You know, and then we are told sometimes that, look, we needn't worry. It's a worldwide phenomena. Everybody is facing the same problem. If everybody is facing the same problem, it simply means that we are all doing the wrong thing. The fact that everybody is facing the same problem doesn't make what is happening in Ghana right. And sometimes, while still, we are told that the problem is caused by the Russia-Ukraine War. Can you believe that Ukraine, where the bombs are falling, its currency is doing better than the Ghanaian currency? So that's a useless excuse. They should stop telling us about the Ukraine, Russian war, and so on, because in Ukraine, which is receiving the bombs is doing much better than we are doing. It simply doesn't make sense. And then we are told that COVID-19 is also responsive to the current crisis and so on. Is COVID-19 the reason why we have signed the foreign exchange retention agreements with the mining companies? Certainly not. COVID-19 is not the reason why we are interested in our own mining operations in Zaro. COVID-19 is not the reason why we are dependent on Germany for our tomato needs. COVID-19 is not the reason why we are not missing the acoustic work dam to farm fish. COVID-19 is not the reason why we are not getting maximum benefits out of the cocoa industry. The second largest producer of cocoa and look at the poverty around us, COVID-19 simply cannot explain this condition. Right. So finally, of course, a question I asked almost every guest who comes on our show. It's basically that you analyze the problems that lead to it. One interesting aspect about many countries which are in a similar situation is that both the ruling party and the opposition seem to be in almost a bankruptcy or a crisis of alternatives because both of them, of course, criticize each other, but finally they both end up going to the IMF for perpetuating the same policies. So from the perspective of the left and Ghana, from the perspective of many of the movements you were talking about earlier, who have been raising slogans, who have been sort of expressing their opposition. What might be some of the concrete steps that might help alleviate this crisis at this point in time? You're right. I mean, all the governments have gone to the IMF and the World Bank and at any given time, the opposition has said no to IMF and World Bank. As soon as they come to power, they've cleared the path towards the boardrooms of the IMF and the World Bank. Indeed, the current government in Ghana said that it is unpatriotic to go to the International Monetary Fund. In fact, they actually said that it would be reckless to go to the International Monetary Fund and so on. Now they are in power, they are also headed to the IMF and so on. So there's a certain level of insincerity when it comes to these parties which alternate in government and so on. Now clearly, these governments do not appear to have any answer to the problems that confront them. They've been doing this for 16 years. This is the 18th time we are going to the IMF and you know the popular statement by Einstein. I was thinking of that. The popular statement by Einstein that if you keep up doing the same thing all the time and you're expecting different results, you need to have your head examined. Now we've been doing the same thing for 16 years and we're expecting different results which ain't going to happen, you understand? So we need to think anew. And if we need to think anew, the formula we have to adopt is to find out what we have, how to maximize income, how to maximize the benefits of what we have in order to address the concrete problem that faces the Ghanaian people, how to make sure the Ghanaian people have food on the table, how to make sure that access to education improves, how to make sure that when people fall sick they get treatment and so on. This is how we have to approach the economy. The economy is not about figures, it's not about the gross domestic product, it's not about the capital income, it's not about debt to GDP ratio and so on. The economy ought to be concretely about the lives of our people, how to improve the lives of our people. And if the economy is doing well, citizens must feel it. The contentment of citizens must be the measuring rod when it comes to looking at the national economy. And I am convinced that these bourgeois political parties don't have no solutions at all. And I'm happy that general mobilization in Ghana appeared to be getting a boost. Organized labor is mobilizing, all kinds of fronts are mobilizing. I think it's time for the left movement in Ghana to clearly identify with all of these movements which are agitating for a better and new option to economic development and to participate in these struggles until we get to the point where we shall begin to look for indigenous solutions to our problems, not solutions which end up increasing the the wallets of those who sit in the bottoms of the multinational corporations in the colonial metropolis. And I think it's possible. I think ultimately we shall emerge victorious in this battle against underdevelopment and neoliberalism. Absolutely. Thank you so much for speaking to us. So there we have it, a tough couple of months and even years maybe ahead for the people of Ghana. And many other countries like I said earlier facing a very similar situation as well. The ruling class might tell all of us that there really is no option. The IMF is the only way to go. These policies are the only options to solve the crisis to some extent. But I think the question we all need to ask perhaps is that is that really the case? Are there other alternatives? That might go much a much farther way. That might be much better to actually solve some of these crises that we in many countries face. That's all we have time for today from People's Dispatch and PA TV. See you next time.