Mahama is right: Africa cannot keep waiting for permission to grow
President John Dramani Mahama’s message in London was blunt: while some Western investors remain busy with notebooks, risk assessments and long lists of concerns, Chinese and Indian investors are already putting money on the table.
“The typical Western investor comes with a notebook and asks, ‘Do they have an independent judiciary? Is the media free?’ By the time you get to the fifth point, the Chinese have invested and the Indians have invested,” he told the Financial Times Africa Summit.
It was not a rejection of accountability. It was a warning that Africa cannot remain a continent permanently under review while others build factories, ports, mines and supply chains.
Africa must stop exporting poverty
Mahama’s larger argument was even more important: Africa must stop exporting raw materials only to import finished goods at higher prices. He said the continent must bring processing and value addition home to create jobs for young people.
For Ghana, that means keeping more value from cocoa, gold, bauxite and other resources. The President said Ghana aims to end raw ore exports by 2030, requires at least 50 per cent of cocoa beans to be processed locally, and has identified an alumina refinery as the missing link in the bauxite-aluminium chain.
This is the real future. A country that exports raw cocoa but imports chocolate, exports gold but imports jewellery, and exports bauxite but imports aluminium products will always struggle to create enough decent jobs.
Ghana is open, but not for anything
Mahama also told investors that Ghana welcomes partners from America, the European Union, China, India, Russia and elsewhere. But he set a condition: investment must deliver fair returns for both sides, including Ghanaians.gna.org+1
That is the right approach. Ghana should not choose between East and West. It should choose deals that build factories, transfer skills, create jobs and strengthen local industry.
Foreign businesses coming to Ghana can be a good thing, but only if they do more than extract profit. If they employ Ghanaians, train workers, source locally and add value here, they become partners in national development. If they merely ship out raw materials and repatriate profits, they reproduce the old colonial economic pattern in modern clothing.
Should the youth still travel?
For years, travelling abroad has been sold to young Ghanaians as the only route to a better life. But Mahama’s message raises a fair question: if serious investment, industrialisation and job creation are beginning to take root at home, does the “greener pastures” dream still make sense for everyone?
The honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no.
For those with specific skills, secure opportunities, or access to quality education abroad, travelling can still build experience and capital. But leaving Ghana simply because “there is nothing here” is becoming a weaker argument if the country genuinely industrialises. A young person trained abroad only to return and find no factory, no opportunity and no plan has gained little.
The challenge for government is to make staying a rational choice, not through slogans, but through power, roads, credit, training, jobs and fair wages.
But who benefits?
This is where citizens must remain watchful. Big investments do not automatically benefit the poor.
A new factory means little if it employs only a few highly paid expatriates. A mining deal means little if the community loses land, water and livelihoods while profits leave the country. Infrastructure means little if it creates debt without productive capacity.
The test of every foreign investment should be simple: Does it put money in the pocket of the ordinary Ghanaian?
If the answer is yes, then Mahama’s investor diplomacy is meaningful. If the answer is no, then Ghana has simply changed the nationality of its exploiters.
The real task
Mahama is right to tell the world that Africa is open for business. But Ghana must also tell its own people the truth: investment is not development until it becomes jobs, wages, skills, local ownership and shared prosperity.
The Chinese and Indians may move faster than hesitant Western investors. But speed alone is not success. Ghana must negotiate boldly, regulate firmly and ensure that the next phase of foreign investment builds Ghanaian capacity, not dependence.
Africa’s future will not be written in a Western investor’s notebook. It will be written in the factories, farms, refineries and businesses that give ordinary Ghanaians a reason to believe the future is here at home.
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