Highlight Alan's Bold Score and the Next Generation of African Leaders

Alan Kyerematen

Africa cannot be considered impoverished given its location in a region designated by God to be endowed with abundant human, natural, and mineral resources. Nevertheless, Africa is poor.

The Three God must have a special affection for this continent, as even our climate is a source of enviousy for the inhabitants of temperate zones. While we here in the tropics experience summer year-round, those in temperate regions are graced with only three months of warm weather.

Africa produced at least four economic and military superpowers in the past, including at least four in West Africa. Our education, judiciary, and bureaucracy were unrivaled, so the West came to learn from us and adopt our customs. Then, for whatever reason, the tables turned, and Africa fell beneath the feet of those who had previously been beneath us.

Today, the West and superpowers can determine the price at which they will purchase our products and pay significantly less than the cost of production; consequently, we, the producers, subsidize the consumers.

Knowing what unity can accomplish, they sowed discord among us, resulting in national, ethnocentric, ideological, and religious divisions.

They coerced us into joining international organizations and institutions where they could exert the most pressure, and they taught us how to be fraudulent so that we would muck things up for ourselves.

Numerous African leaders have come and gone, but Africa's plight has not improved. Those who were courageous enough to instigate positive changes were either removed from office or forced to take a one-way trip to the afterlife.

But it appears that Africa will shortly make a U-turn and return to prosperity, as evidenced by the emergence of several new leaders. Some new leaders in our Francophone nations are removing France directly from their backs.

Hon. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen is a leader on the rise in Ghana who has demonstrated how to put Africa back on its feet. Alongside Bill Gates (Microsoft Corporation), John F. Kennedy Jr., and others, he was named one of the Hundred (100) Global Leaders for the new millennium by TIME Magazine in 1994.

Alan's expansion of Empretec's presence from Ghana and Zimbabwe to eleven other African nations was unsurprising, given that he was endowed by God with the ability to perceive things that can promote progress and prosperity. As the director of the Presidential Special Initiative under President Kufuor, he oversaw the implementation of the Corporate Village Enterprise to promote rural development. He established, among other things, a $8.5 million, state-of-the-art factory that produced industrial starch from our native cassava for export to Africa, Europe, and Asia.

With Alan came the construction of a multimillion-dollar enclave within the Tema Free Zone, dedicated to Ghanaian entrepreneurs producing garments for export. Alan brought about the revival of the Oil Palm industry in Ghana, resulting in an unprecedented increase in seedling supply from 250,000 per year in 2001 to 4 million by the end of 2004 from twelve nursery sites. Under this program, over 100,000 hectares of palm plantation are being cultivated.

Alan brought with him the mobilization of new investments to expand salt mining operations in Ghana and to provide a stable base of raw materials for the development of a caustic soda industry to serve other manufacturing industries. The non-traditional export sector of Ghana has increased from $400 million in 2000 to $800 million in 2005. Alan initiated initiatives that promoted the expansion of our economy in the past, and he did the same in the present.

Evident is the 1D1F Initiative, which resulted in the construction or reactivation of over two hundred factories across the nation. The impact of 1D1F and Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) on Ghana's trade balance is substantial. In 2020, Ghana began documenting trade surpluses for the first time. Currently, the average trade deficit under this administration is -$25 million, compared to an average trade deficit of -$4.5 billion during the Mills/Mahama NDC administration.

Alan Kyerematen conceived the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which follows. This results in the creation of a single continental market for products and services, as well as the free movement of businesspeople and investments.

In light of the current state of international trade, which negatively affects impoverished nations, Alan's AfCFTA can be viewed as a game-changer in which producer nations will receive adequate payments for their goods and also become progressively wealthier so that they can develop into the second and first worlds.

On his campaign trip to the Western Region of Ghana, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, an NPP candidate for the party's presidential nomination, stated that with the region's abundance of natural and mineral resources, $3 billion could be obtained from the region without having to resort to the Bretton Woods Institutions.

My journalist friend misunderstood Alan's statement to imply that he asserted unequivocally that Western Region could procure the $3 billion we are begging IMF for. Sensationalism in Ghanaian journalism is out of control. He used the occasion to criticize the 1D1F Initiative without offering any rational arguments.

Alan's vision, which is explicitly articulated in his Great Transformation Plan (GTP), is realizable from the Western Region and all other regions. Alan included the domestication of the gold, oil, and gas industries for the required impact and processing of all Western Region resources.

With the AfCFTA in full effect, Ghanaian goods, including those from the Western Region, can be processed and sold to African nations. Alan has created markets for the production sectors he has established. This is a man with vision, one who sees the potential in everything he examines. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen's inclusion in Time's list of the most influential world leaders of the 21st century was appropriate.

Alan urged us in the Western Region to engage in somber contemplation on how to advance Ghana.

Without sobriety and concentration, it is impossible to advance this country forward. During such contemplation, we must be extremely objective and transcend partisanship, ethnicity, and ideology. We must consider issues from a nationalistic perspective and focus on what will benefit the nation as a whole.

The current polarisation of politics in Ghana is the greatest obstacle to achieving this objective. Today, our political leaders are frequently more partisan than national. For instance, the NDC, which implemented a 17.5% VAT on Financial Services during its era in 2014, would use its numbers in Parliament during an NPP administration in 2021 to defeat a 1.5% E-Levy proposed by the NPP. While doing so, the NDC included in its 2020 platform a proposal to implement an E-Levy clone.

Today, the NDC boldly asserts that it will ensure the current NPP administration fails in all sectors. It did not want Parliament to approve the nominations of ministers of state, expecting that Ghana will be without ministers of Trade and Industry and Food and Agriculture, among others, and that it will be able to claim credit for the fact that the NDC is the ruling party even in opposition.

Clearly, the NDC has no positive intentions for Ghana. Instead of coming out to assist this government in achieving results for this country, it wants this country to fail. If elected, how will it restore the damage before implementing its development agendas?

The NDC's hypocrisy is extremely legendary. In 2013, when it appeared that the NPP would win the first Elections Petition, the NDC sent representatives to the NPP headquarters during UP Tradition's 21st anniversary celebration. Under the leadership of Chairman Kwabena Adjei, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) proposed that the winner-takes-all policy be abandoned so that all political parties have members in government. Good news!

However, when the Supreme Court ruled that H.E. John Mahama had won the elections legally, the NDC did not implement the proposal it had previously suggested.

Alan is so intent on uniting all political parties to concentrate more on issues that will help Ghana advance and abandon this age-old partisanship that is hindering the country's progress. Only the president has the authority to implement and create this law. When this is accomplished, there will be central policies that extend beyond a quarter century or even a half century. All administrations will be required to implement such policies aimed at constructing Ghana.

Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen will have to work hard to implement this proposal, but as someone who is known for recognizing and pursuing promising opportunities, he has a high chance of success.