Ghana’s Development Dilemma: The Case for Trusting Local Entrepreneurship

Ghana’s Path to Development: The Untapped Potential of Local Entrepreneurs

When considering national advancement, the fundamental question often becomes: do we aim for a prestigious national symbol, or do we prioritize solving a pressing national problem? This distinction is crucial, especially in the context of fostering a robust national transportation infrastructure, such as an airline.

Many South East Asian nations that successfully transformed their economies did so not just through industrial policy, but through the profound philosophy embraced by their most successful entrepreneurs. From Korea to Singapore, Malaysia to Indonesia, these societies nurtured business leaders who saw themselves as instruments of national progress. They operated with an ethic of scale, discipline, and national purpose, and crucially, their governments had the courage to empower them.

Ghana, unfortunately, often falters at this critical juncture. We express a desire for development but shy away from the ‘uncomfortable step’ of trusting our own builders. This predicament is starkly illustrated by the recurring narrative of Ghana Airways.

For decades, successive Ghanaian governments have launched and relaunched national airlines, only to see them collapse under the weight of bureaucratic control, political appointments, and the inherent unreality of state-led commercial management. This pattern of failure is not mysterious. Even economic giants like China, with far stronger institutional frameworks, do not operate commercial ventures as wholly state-owned entities. Instead, they strategically empower private operators, demand performance, and use state holdings to guide development.

Ghana’s situation is even more perplexing because we already possess what many other countries spend decades trying to cultivate. In James Akpo, known traditionally as Togbe Afede, Ghana has an entrepreneur who achieved the improbable: he founded Africa World Airlines (AWA). He meticulously built the systems, secured vital international partnerships, and created a carrier that has safely, reliably, and efficiently flown over 5 million passengers. In an incredibly challenging environment, he accomplished what the state could not achieve in over forty years.

This is precisely the moment when a truly developmental state would make the rational decision. It would identify the proven local firm, structure a transparent performance contract, provide financing guarantees calibrated to results, and seamlessly embed the airline into a broader national aviation strategy. In essence, it would take what already exists and scale it for national benefit.

Yet, Ghana hesitates. This hesitation is not technical; it is deeply psychological.

Our public life continues to be governed by an inherited trauma – a reflexive suspicion toward domestic capital. Society has internalized a belief that if a Ghanaian succeeds at scale, it must inevitably be through political favor. This trauma paralyzes decision-making, preventing leaders from taking the obvious, beneficial steps because they fear the ‘optics’ of perceived favoritism more than they value the tangible outcome for the nation.

What should be a straightforward national strategy becomes a moral interrogation. Instead of asking whether AWA can deliver a viable national airline, the public demands to know whether support for AWA is merely a favor to Togbe Afede. This is the enduring legacy of a society that has not yet resolved its past. We treat every domestic entrepreneur as a suspect, and every opportunity for national capacity-building as a political risk.

The cost of this psychological barrier is immense. Ghana repeatedly reinvents the wheel when a perfectly functioning one is right before us. The country spends millions designing new national carrier schemes while one of its citizens has already built a robust, working aviation platform. The tragedy is not merely the wasted money; it is the waste of national potential, the refusal to leverage our own talent for fear of public backlash.

South Korea once faced a similar dilemma. Its early business leaders were not always universally beloved. But the state made a philosophical decision to prioritize performance over perception, and results over rumor. This courage laid the foundation for global conglomerates like Samsung, Hyundai, LG, and Korean Air, the latter founded by an individual far less experienced in business than James Akpo.

Ghana’s challenge is not a scarcity of entrepreneurs; it is the absence of courage to mobilize and empower them.

The solution is both obvious and long overdue. The government must adopt a transparent, performance-based partnership model and actively invite firms like AWA into a national strategy. It must set measurable targets – focusing on safety, fleet expansion, regional routes, and profitability – and genuinely support the company in meeting them. Crucially, it must assert publicly that empowering a domestic firm is not corruption, but a foundational national strategy for growth and self-reliance.

Until we confront and discard the trauma that shapes our public imagination, we will continue to manufacture obstacles to our own advancement. We hesitate not because we lack talent, but because we fear what it truly means to trust it.