allAfrica.com: West Africa: Ghana President Promises Strong Ecowas Stance on Liberia (Page 1 of 4)

It has been a busy week for the President of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor. On Monday he welcomed the outgoing president of Mali, Alpha Oumar Konare, on a 3-day state visit - one of Konare’s last official functions before he steps down next month.

On Tuesday, Kufuor was on hand to greet the visiting United States’ treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, travelling with the Irish pop star, Bono, of the group U2, who is a fervent campaigner for debt relief for the developing world.

On Thursday, the Ghanaian leader was scheduled to play host to retired South African president, Nelson Mandela although the trip was put on hold at the last minute.

President Kufuor has been a busy man ever since he took power at the start of 2001. AllAfrica.com’s Ofeibea Quist-Arcton decided it was time to get his assessment of his government’s first year and a half in office. In a comprehensive interview, Kufuor also shared his thoughts with allAfrica.com on developments in West Africa, progress on the continent with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Nepad, as well as relations farther afield.

AllAfrica will be publishing the interview in two parts, focussing first on current regional and African affairs, then on Ghanaian issues and on wider questions about Africa's economic future. Excerpts:

President Kufuor, you are now almost eighteen months into the job as leader of Ghana, how is the country doing under your stewardship?

I believe Ghana is doing very well, from the point Kufuor took over, considering where Ghana is coming from.

What have been the successes and what are the failures so far of the Kufuor presidency?

The economy has been functioning well, in terms of the basics. The macro-economy, more or less, has been stabilized with inflation dropping faster than even planned. We took over when inflation was at 42 percent, now it’s around 14 percent within one year and six months.

Interest rates have followed from around 52 percent to a currently about 26 percent and our currency, the cedi, has stabilized. I’m sure you will remember that in 2000, the cedi depreciated by as much as 100 percent against the dollar. Today, we are talking in terms of 4 or 5 percent against the dollar.

We promised the people that we were ushering in the golden age of business. All these indicators go to show that we are on course and doing very well.

And the failures?

Law and order for some time seemed to go haywire, but again I’m sure in your short spell here with us, you are noting that things are again stabilizing there.

Other social services are being delivered, but we find that this is perhaps what some people may look to as not a plus yet, because we find that tariffs have to go up. Already the people are over-burdened with the cost of living and that sort of thing. So, when prices go up, naturally life tends to get a bit tough. But it seems that it’s a hardship people have to go through before things get better.

In the short term, yes, life is hard, but we believe it’s a bitter pill we have to take before we turn the corner. So, on balance things are going well there.

So much for Ghana, but what about further afield?

When you look at international relations, then I would say perhaps we are in the A class. We came in with a policy of good neighbourliness and we are in the best of relations with all our neighbours - from Nigeria, through Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal - we are fine with all of them.

So, when we say Ghana should be the gateway to the sub-region, it seems we are fulfilling that.

Talking regionally, as a member of the Economic Community of West African States, Ecowas, you’re sometimes accused of being a Ghanaian president who spends more time abroad than at home.

They may accuse me, again, thinking very short term. But I’m looking from short to medium to long term. We want Ecowas to be a common market, because we believe that’s where we get the economies of scale and also give ourselves the attraction for international investments.

Ecowas, as you know, is an area that is home to about 250 million people. Ghana is only 20 million. We have got very good human qualities that tend to overspill in what people call the brain drain. We want to be able to hold these people here and use their undoubted talents, because everywhere they go around the globe they do well. We want to create the market here, within our vicinity, and use these people. That way we can move the sub-region into globalisation.

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