A few years back, Vladimir Putin, the Premier of the nation of Russia decided to launch an attack against the nation of Ukraine. Before then, the world had enjoyed relative economic peace and was just tottering out of the devastating Covid pandemic.
Many people had not realized, but both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of wheat grain, and the war (I still call it an unprovoked attack) in that far off corner of the world had major effects on many economies, Ghana included.
At the time, the President of Ghana then had cause to complain. Ghana’s economy had never been healthy, and even though an agrarian nation, depended heavily on Ukrainian wheat to power its flour mills. For those who do not know (laugh) we use wheat flour to bake bread, the filling food that millions of Ghanaians eat every morning. It is said not to be very nutritious, but it keeps one’s belly full and keeps hunger pangs at bay.
The war in Ukraine so angered Akufo-Addo, our President then, that he spoke bitterly and publicly against it, to the displeasure of Vladimir Putin, who also made his position known publicly. Oddly, many Ghanaians, including myself and then opposition leader John Mahama, took umbrage with Mr. Akufo-Addo for his position. My view was that we had no business, as a nation sitting on the Equator with year-round sunshine and flowing rivers, to be dependent on food from an icebound nation like Ukraine. I urged us to find substitutes for flour. In fact, cassava, which Ghana has plenty of, can easily produce flour to make heavier and more nutritious bread.
Mr. Mahama, on the other hand, claimed that Mr. Akufo-Addo’s position was untenable, and that Ghana was not the only nation in the world affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war, and that if other economies were not suffering, we should not be suffering too. To a point, I agreed with him, and believed that in future, he would not similarly seek solace in international events to decide local policy.
Fast forward to last week. Iran and Israel, to Middle Eastern nations, decided that they had enough of their people living in peace and enjoying their lives, and launched missiles at each other.
The missiles had hardly landed, and the smoke was still rising, when we heard from Mr. Mahama complaining about the effect of the war in the Middle East on fuel prices.
Mr first thought was that Mr. Mahama is now admitting that international facts can have devastating effects on Ghana’s economy. It is refreshing that he has come to this realization, but is also sad that it had to take missiles in the desert to make him realize that Ghana is not existing on the moon. When Ukraine catches cold, and when there is smoke and dust in the desert, poor Ghana can have sneezing fits.
It is a fact of life.
And like all facts of life, this should provide education.
The first and most important education it can offer, in our case, is how we can build an economy that is redoubtable to international shocks like the rise in the prices of wheat and crude oil. And the answer is not far to seek. We should work on agriculture, value addition and processing, and industrialization.
For instance, as proposed by Alan Kyeremateng decades ago, we can decide to make a crop like cassava a national product. It is versatile, can be processed into thousands of useful products as well as food, it is easy to grow and process, and can be the backbone of hundreds of thousands of sustainable jobs.
And cassava is not the only crop with such qualities. Plantain has similar attributes and can be cultivated year round. Corn too, and many more.
The fact is that if food is in abundance, it does not really matter the cost of fuel. Because by sheer economics of scale, abundant food would absorb the cost of fuel.
It may be sexy, in the short-term, for both Akufo-Addo and Mahama to point the blame at the irresponsible war mongers in Russia, Iran and Israel. That is easy. The hard work, is coming back home to bolster our people to do the hard work necessary to create the type of economy redoubtable to withstand international shocks.
Let us raise the debate beyond scoring petty partisan scores, such as gloating that Mahama has learned his lesson, to finding out what we can do to remain on our feet, even when missiles are flying.
Have a great week!
(PERISCOPE DEPTH of 16th June, 2025).
