In Ghana Public Infrastructure Investments dissolve in open defecation

“Infrastructure is both the backbone for the economy but also the motherboard for technological innovation. Without adequate infrastructure, Africa’s economies cannot realise their full potential. The continent’s low economic performance and weak integration into the global economy is in part a result of inadequate infrastructure—mainly energy, transportation, telecommunications, water and sanitation, and irrigation.”

(American-based Kenyan Dr. Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School’s Professor of the Practice of International Development and Faculty Chair of the Innovation for Economic Development Executive Program/Director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Science, Technology and Globalization Project).

INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MANAGEMENT & PUBLIC CAPITAL INVESTMENT

This observation sums up the importance of infrastructure in national development. This is why investment in public capital is such a prudent choice for any government to consider as a policy priority.

The other reason is that no foreign investor will want to invest in another country, with inadequate investment in public capital, to sustain his or her investment. It fits the rational choice theory somewhat perfectly.

The only probable downside to investment in public capital in our part of the world is that, we often outsource infrastructural projects, rather than consider local expertise for the job, a policy move that may have severe intended and unintended implications for national development.

Thus, it is extremely important that we also find ways to make up for the grinding deficits we have in human capital. We cannot expect to have children studying under trees to compete effectively with their counterparts in the West and the advanced economies of the East, for instance.

It is equally understandable that local expertise may not measure up to international standards and therefore governments, like ours, are forced to look elsewhere, although, once again, we have competent men and women with the technical know-how to assist local efforts. David Ajaye is one such individual (Note: We have featured him and some of his outstanding works in some of our earlier articles before he became a fixture on Ghanaweb in connection with designing the National Museum of African American History and Culture).

How much do we invest in R&D? Is R&D even a national priority? Apparently not. It matters that institutions—such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)—should coordinate efforts between the private sector and the state regarding effective ways of funding R&D.

No modern civilization can afford to ignore the importance of infrastructure asset management to development economics, human capital management, sustainable development, and development sociology.

And in all these R&D figures prominently in any strategic assessment of infrastructure asset management. Still, outsourcing strategies come with technology and knowledge transfer and transfer of other forms of administrative and technical expertise to a local economy.

This transfer of knowledge may be overt or implicit in setting up public capital.

The overt aspect revolves around a number of social benefits derived from public capital investments.

But not when open defecation denies existing public capital its humanity, when maintenance is not part of the technical vocabulary of the Ghanaian bureaucracy and Ghanaians in general, and when open defecation graces some important public infrastructures, for our leaders have never demonstrated any serious technocratic knowledge of compatibility between infrastructure asset management and comparative advantage, pragmatic nationalism, social benefits, and internal development.

It requires radical revision of the public mindset, knowledge of public health, and strategic investments in educating the public in order to do away with this shameful chronic problem of open defecation.

But there is so much the government and our bureaucracies can do to reverse these shameful trends.

Open defecation dehumanizes Ghanaians, depreciates or devalues public infrastructure, results in a dip in tourism revenue, and adds to rising anthropogenic-driven disease burden.

What Frantz Fanon called “dependency complex” cannot help us do away with open defecation, a millstone around our collective neck.

It should rely on our own initiative to combat this problem. We must make a concerted effort to protect investments in public capital from vandals, saboteurs and modern-day Luddites.

Significantly, the crooked mind that is behind open defecation is the same mind behind public corruption. Perhaps protecting one’s comparative advantage is all there is to it—the central question of pragmatic nationalism. It is the case that patriotic members of industrialized polities and emerging ones apply themselves well to matters of comparative advantage and pragmatic nationalism.

Ours is a different political and moral narrative—political morality. We are hereby referring to public corruption, namely using dubious accounting practices to inflate project costs.

We do not invest much foresight and technocratic efforts toward maintaining public infrastructure.

Maintenance is required to sustain the physical health of infrastructure, to maximize or optimize the social benefits from public infrastructure, to promote infusions of foreign capital and expertise into the system, and to keep the economy going.

We sometimes forget that any piece of infrastructure is just like the human body, which requires technical “nourishment” from time to time to keep it from homeostatic breakdown.

In other words, like human beings, any piece of infrastructure has a natural lifespan which is subject to how we maintain them.

However public corruption is not unique to our part of the world.

It is seen in the West, Asia and other parts of the world, yet certain economies in the East are fast catching up with the West in terms of the pace of public capital investment.

Now talking about public corruption, we can recall a morally instructive anecdote which cites an African minister who traveled to the East, Asia, on a familiarization tour.

And whilst there, he was exposed to the near-panoramic continuum of technological and scientific advancements Asians have made—sprawling skyscrapers, airports, roads, public service infrastructure, and so on.

The minister nearly fainted from lack of inhalation of agoraphobic fresh air.

Nevertheless, having recovered fully from his transient stupor, he asked his Asian host almost extemporaneously:

“How did you guys do it?”

There was a series of uncomfortable croaky harrumphs from the host:

“Patriotism, dedication, hard work, a high sense of collective self-esteem…Yes, we also steal from our national coffers but we still make sure to develop our countries and our people, unlike you Africans who steal all and completely forget about the development of your countries and your people!”

CONCLUSION

All the indications are that we will never be where we are today in terms of infrastructural investment and physical development if our leaders religiously followed the pre-eminent example of Nkrumah.

On the other hand, Ghana and its economy have survived to this day because of the pragmatic vision of this great son of Africa and of the world, the world’s “Africa’s Man of the Millennium.”

The teachable, prime example of Nkrumah is nonpareil—that is, Nkrumah has no peer in the entire political history of the African continent. Perhaps only the Ancient Egyptian vizier and polymath Imhotep comes close (see Robert Bauval/Thomas Brophy’s book “Imhotep: Architect of the Cosmos”).

This is why the British scholar David Simon, a Professor of Development Geography/Director of the Center for Developing Areas Research at Royal Holloway (CEDAR), University of London, ranked Nkrumah among the world’s most influential fifty development thinkers and why Nkrumah is still studied in development studies across the world today (see the book “Fifty Key Thinkers on Development”; see also Ivan Van Sertima’s text “Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern”).

Prof. Simon is also associated with the University of London-based Politics, Development and Sustainability Group (PDSG), a research group made up of the Politics and Environment Research Group (PERG) and CEDAR.

REFERENCES

Calestous Juma. (June 26, 2015). “Infrastructure For Innovation.” New African.