GHANA DR BUSIA TACKLES THE MANY PROBLEMS LEFT BY NKRUMAH

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 12

GHANA DR BUSIA TACKLES THE MANY PROBLEMS LEFT BY NKRUMAH

(By

IAN COLVIN

in the “Daily Telegraph”, London)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

It is something of a discovery to find a two-party system of parliamentary democracy working in Africa. Like a rare plant, or transplant, that has taken root in a fierce climate, it is worth exploration and study. These were my thoughts on arriving, to find Parliament House, Accra, functioning again on the Westminster pattern, 12 years after Kwame Nkrumah began to quench the Opposition and set up himself as Redeemer and LifePresident.

Nkrumah was ousted in February 1966 while on a visit to China. For three years the National Liberation Council, a military committee, held power, while the Chief Justice of Ghana, Mr Akufo Addo, laboured at a new constitution of checks and balances against dictatorship. A Constituent Assembly then worked over his draft, and in October 1969 general elections brought an elected majority with a system of Cabinet responsibility and a Prime Minister. Ghana, the one African country in which I have always thought that a two-party system could work, began again at square one, as if the previous 12 years had been a bad dream. At the Castle Osu, where Nkrumah used to rule, a procession of cars driving up with police outriders and snarling horns reminded me of bygone days, but instead of Nkrumah, the jumbo god of Pan-African mythology, this time out stepped a mild, smiling university professor. Dr Kofi Busia, the new Prime! Minister of Ghana. The Man In Power Dr Busia, who fled from Ghana in 1959 to avoid the detention camp, filled in time teaching at Leyden University and Oxford. Today he is the man in power, his Progress ’ party holding 105 seats in the i Assembly with an Opposition , of 35. He is quiet, gentle. ! reasonable in manner and , open to argument. The political weather might appear to i be set fair for years ahead, . with the military men taking i a back seat in the Presiden- ' tial Commission, which acts as Head of State. Yet six months after the revival of the National Assembly there is a political squall blowing round Accra, like one of the line squalls that circle over the Gold Coast, stripping the neam trees of their yellow leaves and sending the slate • and • orange [ lizards scampering for cover, j Sometimes these squalls move out to sea unbroken, but they can expend themselves on the capital in a deluge. Dr Busia assumed power with the bad debts of Kwame Nkrumah hanging round his neck. The total foreign indebtedness of Ghana is £450 million, on which payment of interest amounts yearly to 20 per cent of Ghana's foreign currency earnings. Three delegations have just left Accra for Britain and America, for Western Europe and for the Soviet bloc to see whether repayment of the! principal can be once more rescheduled. The spending sprees of Nkrumah are laming to the economy. Economic growth has fallen to less 1 than one per cent. It was ludicrous for Nkru- ' mah to give this nation of ! eight million people 70 diplomatic missions abroad. The ' number has now been cut back to 41. Ten more Embas- , sies could usefully be closed, as foreign representation i costs not far short of £4 million yearly; but African brother-States cling 'to mutual accreditation and resist further closures. For the African political morale depends on ’ Mercedes cars, receptions and junketing among diplomats. Meanwhile Dr Busia is sorely worried for funds. He needs for preference to carry out slum clearance and provide drains, piped water and branch roads. Civil Service Cut His attempts at reducing the Civil Service have also brought him into direct conflict with Parkinson’s Law of Multiplicity. There are 200,000 public servants in Ghana. His Government aimed to cut their numbers by 2000. It had eventually to limit the cuts to 568, who were held to have “failed in efficiency, honesty, foresight or devotion.” Even these few are contesting the Government’s right to dismiss them. A senior man, Mr E. K. Sallah, former manager of the Ghana Trading Corporation, has in the Supreme Court just won his case for wrongful dismissal. Cabinet Ministers complain that the Judiciary is misunderstanding the mood and the needs of the nation. Unlike some other African States, a judge in Ghana cannot be dismissed for his interpretation of the law.

the Busia Government also ran into difficulties in November in an attempt to rid Ghana of unwanted immigrants. It took sudden action against what are known as “African aliens.” Summary deportation orders were issued affecting one million Nigerians, 250,000 Togolese, 60,000 Ivory Coast nationals, 350,000 from Upper ■ Volta, 200,000 Dahomeans. 400,000 Niger citizens, and 120,000 Liberians. To be complied with within two weeks, these orders produced conditions of exodus comparable to the worst population treks in the Nigerian civil war. European expatriates are next on the list for thinning out, and a Ghana Enterprise Decree makes it necessary to replace foreign executives and managers and “Ghanaise” the ownership of many foreign firms. A dislike of foreigners is stirring in Ghana, for which it is hard to account in this friendly land. It may derive from the nar-

rowing of economic growth, from anger at the refusal of foreign creditors to reschedule Ghana’s debts, or simply from feelings of impatience with privileged people. It is not a symptom of the new Ghana to be ignored. Realistic Policies Dr Busia is himself no chauvinist, and no admirer of dictatorships. In foreign affairs he was bold enough on assuming power to call for some realism in African policies, including a dialogue with wealthy and unassailable South Africa. He is finding in home politics what so many parties discover when they have been returned with a majority of 70 seats and a taste for power. Others before them have tied up and disposed of the options for years to come.

Nkrumah spent. They must retrench. He dictated. They must defer to individual rights. The 1969 Ghana constitution, 150 pages thick, is full of safeguards especially I for the Judiciary and the rights of the individual. Within a few months of assuming power Dr Busia’s fingers are itching to unpick and reknit the constitution to give the Executive more power. It contains, for instance, a provision which in most African constitutions must be more honoured in the breach than the observance: “The Government shall be subject to all those liabilities in tort to which, if it were a private person, it would be subject.”

The Ghana Parliament is working again in the Chamber and the corridors as I have seen it work nowhere else on a tour round Africa. Popular democracy of an impatient rumbustious sort is at work too. Government by decree is over, the Preventive Detention Act is revoked. The soldiers are back in their barracks at least for the present and the civilians have their day and their great I chance. Satisfied Speaker

Mr Speaker Ollenu, a former judge and barrister of the Middle Temple, receives me in Parliament. He appears satisfied with Parliamentary behaviour and produces for my inspection amendments to Acts that the Opposition has already effectively obtained. “The Opposition has made itself felt in Parliament,” Dr Busia admits. He adds: “We are prepared to allow them to function,” but he again qualifies this remark by adding “as an essential part of demo'cracy.” The struggle, as I see it, is

one to evolve an African democracy that is not open to gross abuse and yet preserves the freedom of the individual. Dr Busia knows that he has to make democracy stick in conditions that are economically unfavourable to his Government. Meanwhile there are competent rivals waiting to see what mistakes his new democracy may make. One of these is Dr Komla Gbedemah, former Finance Minister, who first served under and then .quarrelled with Nkrumah. Dr Gbedemah was again elected to Parliament in 1969 but disqualified from taking bis seat Some day a reversal of this decision might not be unjust. The most immediate issue that 1 see is over the division of authority between President and Prime Minister. Most Africans think that these should be one person, and even Nkrumah may not have cured them of that.