Lord Fiifi Quayle

Is Ghana Truly Open for Business? The Gap Between Grand Ambition and Ground-Level Reality

February 5, 2026

Business & Investment, Economic Policy, Governance Reform, Opinion & Analysis

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

When the world’s eager gaze meets local inertia, even the most promising policy slogans can crumble at the arrivals hall. Ghana, a nation brimming with potential, has masterfully articulated its aspirations through powerful catchphrases:

“Open for Business.”

“24-Hour Economy.”

“Industrialisation.”

“Value Addition.”

These declarations resonate globally, echoing confidently in the corridors of power in Washington, London, Dubai, and Beijing. They captivate audiences at investment forums and multilateral gatherings, convincing international partners that Ghana is poised to transition from mere promise to tangible performance. And, to be unequivocally fair, this global interest is not just rhetorical; it is profoundly real.

The World is Knocking, But Is Anyone Home?

International partners are responding with genuine enthusiasm. Many are moving beyond mere Memoranda of Understanding or email exchanges; they are boarding planes, landing in Accra, and arriving ready to roll up their sleeves and work. The initial uptake the surge of interest and goodwill is undeniably strong.

However, a critical flaw emerges the moment these eager partners step onto Ghanaian soil: the system, designed to welcome and facilitate, often breaks down. The down-take the institutional capacity to absorb this interest, process it efficiently, and convert it into concrete outcomes proves to be tragically weak.

The Arrival Hall Dilemma

Prospective investors recount a consistent, independently verified narrative. They express interest through official channels, receive encouraging signals, and are often invited to explore partnerships within Ghana’s flagship programmes. Yet, upon their arrival, a disconcerting reality unfolds: no one is there to receive them. There’s no clear point of contact, no dedicated coordinating office, and crucially, no accountable officer to shepherd their process from initial interest to successful execution.

Instead, they are shunted from ministry to agency, from one desk to another, from inbox to an ever-growing pile of unanswered emails. Weeks turn into months. Phone numbers change, and the thread of responsibility dissolves into bureaucratic quicksand. This isn’t outright hostility; it’s something far more insidious: indifference disguised as bureaucracy. And indifference, it must be stressed, suffocates investment far more rapidly than policy uncertainty ever could.

Beyond Slogans: The Implementation Chasm

Ghana has become adept at launching ambitious programmes, generating international traction, interest, and even significant goodwill. Yet, the state machinery consistently falters at the crucial stage of implementation.

While uptake is robust, the down-take the institutional ability to effectively process and convert this interest into tangible results remains critically underdeveloped. A nation truly “open for business” is not defined by eloquent speeches or high-profile summits. It is defined by the seamless, efficient processes that kick into gear the moment someone declares, “We are interested.”

Who responds to inquiries?

Who coordinates internal efforts?

Who proactively follows up?

Who ultimately owns the file and ensures progress?

Too often, the answer to these fundamental questions is a resounding: no one.

The Missing Institutional Compass

This systemic breakdown points to a deeper governance issue: the lack of a clear, consistent orientation for government appointees. Ministers, CEOs, directors, and political heads are not merely appointed to oversee existing inefficiencies. Their mandate is to reorient and revitalize the institutions they lead. This reorientation demands explicit directives:

Every ministry and agency managing a flagship programme must establish a single, clearly identifiable nucleus office responsible for handling all expressions of interest.

This office must diligently track inquiries, coordinate internally, proactively follow up, and report on outcomes.

Investors and partners should never be left to guess who to contact or forced to chase files across disparate departments.

If prospective partners are left to search for the right person to speak with, the system has already failed.

Snail Mail in a Digital Age

The challenge isn’t a shortage of personnel; Ghana’s public sector is, in fact, heavily staffed. The real issues lie in deployment, skill sets, and a fundamental lack of seriousness. Many institutions continue to operate as if stuck in the 1990s:

Emails are often unmanaged.

Domains are poorly administered.

There’s a conspicuous absence of central CRM or tracking systems.

Critical correspondence frequently gets lost in personal inboxes.

Budgets allocated to rectify these basic operational deficiencies are often deemed “minimal,” even as bloated administrative structures are maintained. This is not a resource problem; it is, unequivocally, a priority problem.

Fixing this doesn’t require new slogans. It demands trained personnel, clearly defined workflows, modern digital tools, and unwavering accountability from the highest-ranking CEO to the most junior staff member.

The Unspoken Import Bottleneck

Nowhere is the contradiction between ambition and reality more stark than in the much-lauded “24-hour economy.” A truly functional 24-hour economy is inherently reliant on efficient imports:

• Seeds and seedlings

• Machinery

• Technology

• Spare parts

• Industrial inputs

• Services

Yet, Ghana lacks a single, cohesive institution responsible for coordinating imports from end-to-end. Consider the simple act of importing seed potatoes: phytosanitary permits are often unclear, agonizingly slow, or simply unavailable. Certificates are delayed, sometimes to the point where goods are shipped before documentation is resolved, rendering the paperwork meaningless.

The inevitable consequences are delays, significant financial losses, and profound frustration. How can a nation industrialize without reliable access to essential raw materials? How can production scale without predictable import systems? And how can a “24-hour economy” truly thrive when critical approvals cease at 4 p.m.?

The Real Question: Are We Home?

Ghana’s challenge is not a deficit of innovative ideas. Its true struggle lies in an entrenched inability to change what demonstrably does not work. We persist in maintaining broken systems, yet optimistically anticipate different outcomes. We announce sweeping reforms without genuinely reforming the underlying institutions. We celebrate international interest without cultivating the internal capacity to effectively receive and leverage it.

Being “open for business” is not merely a branding exercise; it is a rigorous operational discipline. Until Ghana commits wholeheartedly to:

Institutional Orientation: Clear mandates and processes for every agency.

Follow-Through: Ensuring commitments translate into action.

Digital Efficiency: Modernizing systems and workflows.

Import Coordination: Streamlining the flow of essential goods.

Accountability for Outcomes: Holding individuals and departments responsible for results.

The chasm between Ghana’s grand promises and its actual performance will continue to widen.

The world is indeed knocking. The pertinent question is no longer whether Ghana is open for business. The real question is: Is anyone truly home to answer the door?

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Transformation Brief

February 5, 2026

African Development, Digital Transformation, Economic Transformation, Youth Empowerment

Capitalizing Citizenship: Equipping Africa’s Youth for Economic Participation and Global Competitiveness

The challenge

Africa is home to the world’s youngest population, yet youth unemployment, underemployment, and informality remain structurally high. For many young Africans, citizenship functions primarily as a legal identity rather than an economic enabler. Weak links between identity systems, skills development, labour markets, finance, and mobility prevent demographic potential from translating into productivity and stability.

The result is a widening gap between population growth and opportunity creation, with implications for social cohesion, migration, and long-term competitiveness.

The transformation ambition

To reframe citizenship as an economic asset—one that grants young Africans access to skills, mobility, finance, and opportunity across national and continental markets.

This transformation shifts citizenship from status to platform.

Core transformation question

How can African citizenship be capitalized through policy, technology, and institutions to equip young people with the skills, mobility, and access needed to participate competitively in the global economy?

Key system drivers

1. Digital Identity & Digital Public Infrastructure

Interoperable national ID systems that enable access to services, finance, skills platforms, and labour markets.

2. Youth Skills & Human Capital Development

A shift from credential-based education to employability-driven skills, including TVET, digital skills, green skills, and lifelong learning.

3. Labour Markets & Mobility (AfCFTA)

Intra-African labour mobility, recognition of qualifications, and digital labour platforms aligned with AfCFTA implementation.

4. Access to Opportunity Capital

Youth-focused financial inclusion, skills financing, credit portability, and risk-sharing mechanisms to unlock entrepreneurship and employment.

5. Technology as an Enabler

EdTech, FinTech, and GovTech platforms that connect identity, skills, finance, and work at scale.

6. Public Sector Capacity & Governance

Effective institutions, policy coherence, and service delivery to translate reforms into real outcomes.

7. Trust & Social Contract Renewal

Strengthening institutional trust by ensuring citizenship delivers tangible economic value.

Download ⬇️

Lord F Quayle’s Transformation Map Capitalising Citizenship.pdf Download

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The One-Term Trap: Balancing Ghana’s Political Cycle

February 4, 2026

Governance, Politics

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

Feb. 4, 2026

In the bustling markets of Kejetia and the quiet avenues of Cantonments, a rare sense of economic calm has taken hold. The cedi, long the victim of volatile swings, has found its footing. Inflation, which once soared to heights that crippled household budgets, is finally retreating. For President John Dramani Mahama, who returned to the Flagstaff House just over a year ago, the metrics suggest a leader who has finally mastered the levers of the Ghanaian economy.

But beneath this veneer of stability lies a structural ticking clock. Unlike his predecessors in the Fourth Republic, John Mahama is a man on a deadline. Constrained by a constitutional ceiling that permits only one final four-year act, Mahama’s presidency is fundamentally a lame-duck affair from its inception.

In a nation where the “continuous eight-year cycle” the rhythmic alternation of power between the two dominant parties has become the structural bedrock of political and economic planning, this one-term anomaly is threatening to upend the delicate equilibrium of West Africa’s most stable democracy.

For decades, Ghana’s democracy has followed a predictable, if dysfunctional, rhythm. A new government arrives amidst an economic crisis, often inheriting an International Monetary Fund (IMF) program. Under the watchful eye of Washington, the government implements painful reforms, stabilizes the currency, and brings down inflation. Then, as the second term approaches and the “eight-year cycle” pressure builds, the discipline evaporates.

“We see this cycle of new governments coming in mostly at times that we are under the IMF,” says a senior management consultant in Accra. “It gets them performing extremely well. But right after getting out of the program, you see the overspending and the recklessness that lands us right back at the IMF before the government leaves office.”

John Dramani Mahama is currently the beneficiary of this discipline. His “Big Push” a $10 billion infrastructure plan and his flagship “24-Hour Economy” initiative are being rolled out under the shadow of the IMF’s current oversight. The results are visible: fuel prices are down, and the fiscal deficit is narrowing. But the real test is not how Mr. Mahama ends his tenure; it is what he leaves behind for his successor.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) now faces a dilemma that is as much about character as it is about timing. The party is searching for a candidate who can navigate the post-IMF vacuum.

The fear within the party’s inner circles is palpable. When John Mahama departs in 2029, Ghana will likely be out of the IMF’s immediate grasp. The party base will be hungry for patronage; the “Big Push” will require even more capital to sustain; and the temptation to spend to secure a win will be at its peak.

If the successor falters and the economy slides back into the familiar abyss of debt and devaluation, the door swings wide open for the opposition. Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, the former Vice President and current leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), is already being framed by his supporters as the “Economic Messiah” in waiting, the man who will “save” the country from NDC-led recklessness.

The NDC’s choice is now polarized between two paths. Should they opt for an “old gee” a veteran loyalist willing to serve a single term to bridge the gap? Or should they risk a “young man” who can secure a full eight-year mandate but may inherit a “one-term deficit” if the economic transition fails?

“The party is at a crossroads,” says an NDC insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “We need a candidate who is not just a figurehead, but someone with the financial independent influence and iron-fisted control to resist the populist urge to spend. Without the IMF’s ‘No,’ the next leader must have the internal ‘No’ already built in.”

The “3rd tenure” for Mahama is a non-starter; the Ghanaian public has made it clear that constitutional limits are sacrosanct. This leaves the NDC with a narrow window to “balance the imbalance.”

Ghana’s tragedy has often been its inability to sustain the gains made under external supervision. Mahama’s final act is currently a success story, but it is a story written in the margins of a loan agreement.

As the 2028 election looms on the horizon, the question is no longer whether Mr. Mahama will end his tenure well. He almost certainly will. The question is whether the NDC can seize this opportunity to break the IMF cycle, or whether they will inadvertently pave the way for their rivals to claim the mantle of economic salvation. In the high-stakes game of Ghanaian politics, the greatest imbalance may not be the one-term presidency itself, but the vacuum of discipline it leaves in its wake

GHANA MUST WORK AGAIN

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The Quiet Reordering Of Energy, Money, and Power

February 2, 2026

Africa In Global Affairs, Global Political Economy, Risk, Uncertainty & Finance

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

There are moments in history when the official explanations feel unlikely than the coincidences. When too many things move at once, in the same direction, benefiting the same actors. This is one of those moments.

Let us call a spade a spade, a global energy and monetary reordering, disguised as market dynamics, sanctions, diplomacy, and “price discovery.” But beneath the language of economists lies the old grammar of empire.

Venezuela, Oil, and the Quiet Transfer of Power

Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves. For years, it has been economically strangled, politically isolated, and technologically incapacitated. Officially, this is about democracy and governance. Unofficially and this is where conspiracy theory begins it looks like delayed appropriation.

America does not need to invade Venezuela to benefit from Venezuelan oil. It only needs to:

• Block Venezuela’s independent monetisation,

• Allow selective flows through intermediaries,

• Re-route value via global trading houses,

• And ensure the oil strengthens U.S. production dominance, not Venezuelan sovereignty.

And suddenly almost quietly America is crowned the world’s largest oil producer, not merely by extraction, but by control.

Energy Is the Real Currency

Washington now understands what Africa has always known but never fully weaponised:

Control energy, and you don’t need to control money.

Oil sets transport costs. Transport costs set food prices. Food prices set political stability.

If you dominate energy:

• You discipline currencies,

• You humble manufacturing economies,

• You decide which inflation is “transitory” and which is terminal.

This is why precious metals dipped over the weekend. Not because gold lost its meaning but because markets briefly believed energy dominance had restored American monetary gravity.

China’s Silent Retaliation: Minerals, Not Missiles

China rarely responds symmetrically. It responds structurally.

If America leans on oil, China leans on minerals:

• Rare earths,

• Battery metals,

• Industrial inputs quietly embedded in everything from EVs to missiles.

A dip in precious mineral prices is not weakness it is strategic suffocation. Lower prices discourage investment outside China, consolidate supply chains, and remind the world who truly owns the inputs of the future.

China imports more oil than any other economy on earth. That vulnerability forces sophistication. It cannot fight an energy war loudly. It must fight it patiently.

Currencies in Distress: The Dollar, the Yuan, the Rupee

Trump wants a weaker dollar and that alone should terrify traditional economists. The dollar’s strength has become a liability:

• It prices American manufacturing out of competitiveness,

• It empowers rivals to de-dollarise,

• It ties the Fed’s hands geopolitically.

The yuan is already weaker managed, disciplined, intentional.

The Indian rupee is bleeding caught between ambition and energy dependence.

And Africa? Africa watches all this with currencies that absorb shocks they did not create.

The Federal Reserve: Independence Is a Luxury of Calm Times

Let us be blunt: Warsh as the new Fed Chair and the Fed will not be independent again not in the way textbooks promise.

When energy, debt, elections, and empire converge, central banks become instruments, not referees. Calls for lower interest rates from figures like Kevin Warsh and others in the transatlantic policy orbit are not about growth. They are about strategic relief.

Lower rates mean:

• Easier debt recycling,

• Softer currency management,

• Political oxygen.

Debt: From Chinese Hands to American Hands

For decades, China held American debt as leverage. That era is ending.

America now wants to hold its own debt, domesticate its financing, neutralise external pressure. Debt is no longer a liability it is a weapon that must not be outsourced.

Energy Wars Are Not Coming. They Are Here.

They won’t look like tanks and aircraft carriers.

They will look like:

• Pipeline sabotage,

• Shipping insurance crises,

• Environmental litigation,

• Currency attacks masked as “market corrections.”

Trump and Xi: The Theatre of Coexistence

When Trump and Xi Jinping spend time together later this year, it will not be about friendship. It will be about rules of survival.

Two empires, too intertwined to divorce, too suspicious to trust negotiating how to coexist without collapse.

Africa must read that meeting carefully. Because whatever they agree on will not be written for us but it will apply to us.

The African Question

And here is the uncomfortable truth:

Africa is still rich in energy, minerals, youth, and geography but poor in strategic coherence.

We export raw power and import finished weakness.

We supply the wars and suffer the inflation.

Until Africa treats energy, minerals, and currency as instruments of sovereignty not commodities we will remain spectators in a game played with our own resources.

Final Thought

Conspiracy theories often fail because they assume secret meetings in dark rooms. Power today is more elegant. It hides in algorithms, shipping routes, balance sheets, and “policy signals.”

Nothing happening now is accidental.

Too much is aligning.

Too much is benefiting too few.

History is not ending.

It is re pricing itself.

And Africa must decide whether it will finally read the signals or remain the collateral.

AFRICA MUST WAKE FROM ITS SLEEP

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How Abandoning Hedging Left the Economy Exposed

January 31, 2026

Macroeconomics and Governance, Uncertainty, Volatility and Pricing

Ghana’s economic story is no longer just about debt, inflation, or fiscal consolidation. It is also a story about what the country chose not to do.

One of the least discussed but most consequential policy reversals in Ghana’s recent economic history is the quiet abandonment of sovereign risk hedging after 2013. At a time when volatility in oil prices, exchange rates, and global interest rates was becoming the defining feature of the global economy, Ghana elected to remain exposed and has PAID dearly for it.

Under President John Agyekum Kufuor, Ghana experimented cautiously but deliberately with commodity price hedging, particularly in petroleum. The objective was not speculation, but insurance: smoothing revenues, protecting budgets, and reducing the transmission of global shocks into domestic inflation and fiscal instability.

That framework, imperfect as it was, reflected a crucial insight: commodity dependent economies cannot afford to gamble on spot prices.

Yet after 2013, this insight disappeared from policy thinking.

Between 2013 and 2019, Ghana did not operate a structured, transparent sovereign hedging programme: not for oil, not for foreign exchange exposure, not for interest-rate risk on public debt. What replaced it was not innovation, but improvisation.

Firefighting instead of insurance

In the absence of hedging, Ghana relied on:

• ad-hoc foreign exchange interventions,

• debt reprofiling and refinancing,

• fuel price pass-through to consumers,

• and repeated budget revisions.

These are not risk-management tools. They are emergency responses.

Where hedging transfers risk to the market at a known cost, Ghana absorbed risk directly through depleted reserves, higher inflation, exchange-rate depreciation, and rising debt servicing costs. Volatility was not managed; it was endured.

The oil price collapse of 2014–2016 should have been a turning point. It wasn’t. Instead, Ghana remained fully exposed just as global monetary tightening loomed.

The consequences are now visible

By the early 2020s, the bill came due:

• debt dynamics deteriorated rapidly,

• currency instability became chronic,

• fiscal buffers evaporated,

• and confidence domestic and external eroded.

The post-2022 crisis did not emerge from nowhere. It was the cumulative result of years of unmanaged exposure in an economy structurally vulnerable to external shocks.

This is not hindsight. Countries like Mexico also commodity-dependent institutionalised oil hedging as a permanent feature of fiscal policy. The difference is not ideology; it is seriousness about risk.

The resistance to hedging was never technical. It was political.

Hedging requires paying premiums in good years. It produces accounting “losses” when prices move favourably. It rewards patience, discipline, and institutions not election cycles.

In an environment of weak fiscal credibility and short-term political incentives, hedging became an easy target: misunderstood, under-explained, and eventually discarded.

That decision was costly.

As Ghana stands in 2026, slowly stabilising but still vulnerable, the question is not whether hedging guarantees prosperity. It does not.

The real question is simpler:

Can Ghana afford to remain unhedged in a world defined by volatility?

With commodity prices uncertain, climate risks rising, and global financial conditions structurally tighter, exposure is no longer a neutral stance it is a policy choice.

Recent efforts to rebuild reserves, including gold-based strategies, are steps forward. But without a formal, rules-based sovereign risk management framework, Ghana risks repeating the same cycle under new labels.

The real reform is institutional

What Ghana needs now is not a one-off transaction, but a commitment:

• a sovereign risk management office with legal backing,

• clear rules on when and how hedging instruments are used,

• parliamentary oversight,

• and public education that distinguishes insurance from speculation.

Hedging should not depend on who is in power. It should be boring, predictable, and permanent.

The period between 2013 and 2019 will likely be remembered as a lost opportunity, years when Ghana chose exposure over protection, optimism over prudence.

In 2026, the lesson is no longer academic. It is existential.

Macroeconomic stability is not achieved by hope, press releases, or emergency interventions. It is built quietly, patiently, through institutions that respect risk.

Ghana once understood this.

The task now is to remember and act accordingly.

GHANA MUST WORK AGAIN

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Why John Dramani Mahama’s Third Bid Should Not, and Likely Will Not-Happen

January 29, 2026

Governance

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

In democratic politics, the most consequential battles are rarely fought at the ballot box. The fight is fought earlier, in quiet places: within party constitutions, in unwritten norms, handshakes, and in the moral choices leaders make when the law still gives them room to operate. Ghana, and particularly the National Democratic Congress (NDC), now stands at such a moment.

The argument against a third presidential bid by John Dramani Mahama is not, at its core, about his competence, popularity, or legacy. It is about principle: party principle, constitutional principle, democratic principle, and civic responsibility. On all four counts, the case against a third run is compelling.

The NDC and the Discipline of Precedent

The NDC is a party born out of revolution but sustained by restraint. Its founder, Jerry John Rawlings, wielded immense political authority at the height of his power. He could have rewritten internal party rules to extend his dominance. He did not. Instead, he submitted himself to a term limit and, in doing so, set a precedent that has quietly but firmly guiding the party’s internal democratic culture.

That precedent has not been ambiguous. Over the months, it has been reiterated by the party chairman and general secretary as a foundational principle: leadership must rotate, ambition must yield to institutional continuity, and no individual is bigger than the party. To go against this understanding would not merely be a procedural adjustment; it would amount to a repudiation of the NDC’s own moral architecture.

Political parties survive not because they always win elections, but because they are predictable in their values. Once a party signals that its rules bend for its most powerful figures, it weakens its claim to moral authority especially when it speaks about constitutionalism at the national level.

A Leader Who Has Done It All

President John Dramani Mahama’s political journey is unparalleled in Ghanaian history. He rose patiently and legitimately through every rung of public service: assembly member, Member of Parliament, deputy minister, cabinet minister, Vice President, and President. He is the only Ghanaian leader to have experienced the full arc of democratic fortune: winning power, losing it, and regaining national leadership through the ballot.

There is dignity in completeness. Few leaders anywhere in the world are granted such a comprehensive political life. Even fewer have the opportunity to decide for themselves how it ends.

Mahama himself has, on more than one occasion, publicly indicated that he would not seek to extend his time beyond what democratic norms allow. In politics, words matter especially when spoken by those who understand how fragile trust can be. To reverse such a declaration would not merely invite criticism; it would raise doubts about whether any commitment, however solemn, can survive the temptations of power.

History is kind to leaders who know when to step back than to those who are persuaded to stay one term too long.

The Constitution: Flawed, But Firm on Term Limits

Ghana’s 1992 Constitution is not a sacred scripture. It is a living document, amended before and capable of further improvement. There is broad consensus that some of its provisions deserve reconsideration. Term limits, however, should not be among them.

Term limits are not about punishing good leaders; they are about protecting societies from their own weaknesses. Once a country begins to adjust tenure rules for sitting or recently serving leaders, no matter how popular the door opens for less benevolent actors to do the same. What begins as a lawful amendment can quickly become a dangerous habit.

In Sub Saharan Africa especially West Africa, this pattern is well known. Constitutions are rewritten, protests erupt, trust collapses, and eventually democracy itself becomes negotiable. Ghana has been spared this fate precisely because it has treated term limits as a red line.

Changing that line, even through proper legal channels, would send a signal far beyond Ghana’s borders and not a reassuring one.

Regional Stability and the Weight of Example

Ghana’s democracy is not just a national achievement; it is a regional anchor. In a sub-region frequently shaken by coups, constitutional manipulation, and electoral violence, Ghana’s greatest export is not cocoa or gold it is credibility.

Every constitutional choice Ghana makes is studied, copied, and sometimes distorted by its neighbors. A move that appears to weaken democratic restraint at home could embolden anti-democratic forces elsewhere. Stability is not preserved by force; it is preserved by example.

The cost of unsettling that example would be far higher than any short-term political gain.

Leadership and the Citizens’ Trust

Ultimately, democracy rests on a simple but fragile contract: citizens entrust leaders with power, believing it will be exercised on their behalf rather than exploited for personal longevity. Leaders, in turn, are expected to model restraint, not test the limits of public patience.

When citizens look to leadership, they are not merely seeking policies; they are seeking direction, moral as much as political. To stretch rules, reinterpret commitments, or normalize exceptions risks teaching the wrong lesson: that power, once attained, should be held onto for as long as the law can be persuaded to allow it.

That lesson is corrosive. And it is one Ghana cannot afford.

John Dramani Mahama’s legacy is already secure. Preserving it may require not another campaign, but a conscious refusal to run one. In democratic history, that is often the hardest and most statesmanlike choice of all.

GHANA MUST WORK AGAIN

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Prempeh College: The College of Kings

January 19, 2026

History

They arrive as boys, often unsure of their own voices. They leave with something harder to acquire than confidence: restraint.

Presidents have walked out of its gates. Governors of the Bank of Ghana. Judges, diplomats, economists, scientists, kings. Yet Prempeh College has never measured itself by the titles its students later acquire. Its true work happens much earlier, quietly, before the world begins to watch.

On certain mornings in Kumasi, mist settles over a hilltop campus dressed in green shirt with a yellow crest. The bell rings. Shoes strike the ground in rhythm. And somewhere between the silence of assembly and the discipline of the classroom, power is being taught how not to shout.

Prempeh College is, a high school. In Ghana’s imagination, it is something closer to legend. Mention its name in a crowded room and you will hear the pause before the response. Respect precedes explanation. Like Harvard or Princeton in the American psyche, Prempeh has become shorthand for elite formation. But unlike those institutions, its prestige is not loud. It does not advertise itself. It expects recognition.

The school was founded in 1949, at the edge of Ghana’s independence, through the vision of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Sir Osei Agyeman Prempeh II. It was named after King Prempeh I, whose exile symbolized resistance, dignity and endurance. The message was unmistakable: the future ruling class would be educated, disciplined and rooted. Power would no longer be improvised. It would be prepared.

Discipline at Prempeh is not performative. It is architectural. Time matters. Language matters. Bearing matters. Excellence is not celebrated because it is assumed. Failure is not dramatized, but it is not excused. Students are not trained to dominate rooms. They are trained to master themselves.

This is why Amanfoo, the fraternity of old students recognize one another instantly, sometimes without words. Across generations and social class, the bond holds. A Prempeh old boy in a boardroom, a palace, a courtroom or a ministry carries the same invisible signature(SENIOR): composure. Responsibility. A sense that success is not an escape from others, but a debt owed to them.

Their creed is simple and quietly radical: I am because you are. Individual brilliance is meaningless without collective uplift. Authority exists to stabilize, not to intimidate. Leadership is something you earn daily, not something you announce once.

This is what makes Prempeh College the College of Kings. Not because it produces royalty alone, but because it teaches a royal ethic: power without arrogance, ambition without excess, confidence without noise.

In an era of instant fame and credential inflation, Prempeh College remains stubbornly old-fashioned. It believes in time. In formation. In silence. It believes that the most dangerous leaders are those who have never been taught to wait.

And perhaps that is why, more than seventy years on, families from every corner of Ghana still dream of the slaughter house and those Apian way. Not merely for status, but for something rarer: the making of men who understand that true authority does not announce itself.

It simply arrives and holds.

Senior Lord Fiifi Quayle, Pearson House

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The Referee Is Only Honest When We Benefit: Government’s Easiest Way Out

January 18, 2026

Institutional Series

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

By the time Ghana’s latest IMF review was released, the reaction from official communicators followed a familiar pattern. When the language sounded reassuring, it was amplified as proof of competence and recovery. When it was cautious; carefully worded, conditional, and alert to risk- it was questioned, downplayed, or quietly dismissed.

This selective respect for institutions sets a dangerous precedent.

The International Monetary Fund has become a convenient authority in Ghana’s public discourse: elevated to the status of final arbiter when its assessments flatter government messaging, and treated with suspicion when they do not. Yet the IMF’s value lies precisely in its caution. Its role is not to validate political narratives, but to assess sustainability, risk, and credibility in ways that markets can trust.

Undermining that caution does not strengthen Ghana’s story. It weakens it.

Institutions Are Not Mood Rings

The IMF is not a political actor. It does not operate on the rhythms of press conferences or election cycles. Its language is deliberately conservative because it speaks to audiences far beyond domestic consumption; bondholders, rating agencies, multilaterals, and governments weighing exposure to risk.

When the Fund says progress has been made but risks remain elevated, it is not hedging. It is doing its job.

Yet too often, official responses suggest discomfort with this role. Caution is framed as pessimism. Balance is treated as hostility. The same institution praised as the benchmark of truth one week is accused of being out of touch the next.

Markets notice this inconsistency long before citizens do.

The Gold Trade Example We Keep Missing

Consider the current debate around gold transactions, the Bank of Ghana, and GoldBod.

A more honest and institutionally respectful narrative would acknowledge that yes, the Bank of Ghana is incurring losses on the gold trade—through assaying costs, logistics, financing, and price spreads. These losses are neither imaginary nor scandalous. They are a known cost of intervention.

But it is also true that GoldBod’s returns are helping to sustain foreign exchange inflows, easing pressure on the cedi and supporting reserve accumulation at a time when traditional inflows remain constrained.

Both statements can be true.

The problem arises when communicators insist on absolutes, denying losses entirely when evidence suggests otherwise, or treating acknowledgment as betrayal. In doing so, they mirror the same error they accuse institutions like the IMF of making: simplifying a complex reality for short-term comfort.

The IMF does not object to policy trade-offs. It objects to opacity. So do markets.

Credibility Is Built on Trade-Offs, Not Perfection

No serious investor expects a crisis-era economy to produce immaculate balance sheets. What they expect is coherence: an ability to explain why costs are being incurred, where benefits are materialising, and how risks are being managed over time.

Discrediting the IMF for highlighting risks, while selectively citing it when it offers reassurance, signals something deeper than disagreement. It signals impatience with scrutiny.

And impatience with scrutiny is rarely read as confidence.

Respecting the Referee, Even When the Call Is Uncomfortable

Ghana’s economic reset is, at its core, a credibility exercise. The IMF programme is not just about fiscal targets and structural benchmarks; it is about restoring trust externally and internally.

That trust cannot be rebuilt by treating institutions as tools to be wielded only when convenient. A government secure in its policies should be able to say: yes, there are costs; yes, risks remain; and yes, the strategy is still justified.

The IMF’s caution should not be feared. It should be incorporated.

Respecting the referee only when you are winning is not strength. It is fragility disguised as triumph. And in economics, fragility is expensive; after the applause fades.

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John Dramani Mahama Heads to Davos as Developing Nations Seek a Stronger Voice

January 14, 2026

Governance

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

When President John Dramani Mahama arrives in the Swiss resort town of Davos for the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting on the 19-23 January, he will be stepping onto one of the world’s most influential and scrutinized stages at a delicate moment for both his country and the global economy.

The forum, which draws political leaders, corporate executives, financiers and civil society figures, has long been criticized as an elite gathering detached from everyday realities. Yet for leaders of emerging economies, Davos remains a rare opportunity to shape global conversations and court investment behind closed doors.

Mahama’s participation comes as Ghana works to stabilize its economy after years of fiscal strain, high inflation and debt restructuring. For Accra, Davos offers less about spectacle and more about reassurance to investors, multilateral institutions and partners watching closely for signs of policy direction and credibility.

According to Ghanaian officials familiar with the president’s agenda, John Mahama is expected to focus on economic recovery, structural reform and the need for fairer global financing systems for developing countries. His message is likely to emphasize discipline and reform at home, alongside a call for international systems that better reflect the realities of emerging economies.

“Developing countries are being asked to manage global shocks they did not create,” Mahama has argued in previous international forums. Davos gives him an audience that includes those who shape capital flows, debt frameworks and global economic rules.

Beyond macroeconomics, Mahama is also expected to press for reforms in global governance, particularly in areas such as development financing and public health. His administration has promoted what it calls a “reset” approach; one that shifts countries like Ghana away from long-term aid dependence toward self-financing, locally driven growth models.

At the World Economic Forum, these ideas place Mahama among a group of leaders from Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia who are pushing back against what they see as outdated global arrangements. While Davos is not known for binding decisions, it often sets the tone for policy debates that later move into institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the G20.

For the forum itself, Mahama’s presence underscores a broader shift. Organizers have sought in recent years to amplify voices from the global South, responding to criticism that Davos discussions overrepresent wealthy nations and multinational corporations. Leaders like Mahama bring perspectives shaped by debt vulnerability, climate exposure and development pressures, issues increasingly difficult for the global economy to ignore.

Still, expectations remain measured. Davos is unlikely to deliver immediate breakthroughs for Ghana. Its real value lies in private meetings, quiet negotiations and the signaling effect of presence. Investors listen. Institutions take note. And narratives begin to form.

For John Mahama, the challenge will be to translate the visibility of Davos into tangible outcomes back home; investment commitments, stronger partnerships and renewed confidence in Ghana’s economic direction.

For Davos, his participation is a reminder that the future of global growth will not be decided by advanced economies alone, and that voices from countries like Ghana are no longer content to remain on the margins of the conversation.

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Ghana Moves to Repair Its Energy Sector, Paying $1.47 Billion to Restore Confidence

January 12, 2026

Governance

By Lord Fiifi Quayle

Within his first year back in office, President John Dramani Mahama has moved swiftly to confront one of Ghana’s most destabilizing economic liabilities: a debt-ridden energy sector that had eroded investor confidence and strained public finances.

By the close of the 2025 fiscal year, the government had paid roughly $1.47 billion to clear inherited arrears across the power and gas value chain, according to figures released by the Ministry of Finance. The payments, officials say, were aimed at restoring financial discipline to a sector long plagued by delayed settlements, mounting interest costs and weakened credibility with international partners.

When Mr. Mahama assumed office in January 2025, the energy sector was under acute pressure. Years of nonpayment for gas supplied from the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) field, home to the Sankofa Gas Project had triggered repeated calls on a $500 million World Bank Partial Risk Guarantee. That guarantee, intended as a backstop rather than a routine source of financing, had been fully exhausted under the previous administration.

The guarantee, established in 2015 during an earlier Mahama-led government, was instrumental in unlocking nearly $8 billion in private investment for the Sankofa project, led by the Italian energy firm ENI and its partner Vitol. Its depletion was widely viewed in policy circles as a warning sign not only of fiscal stress, but of weakened governance in a strategically vital sector.

By December 31, 2025, the government had repaid $597.15 million, including interest, to fully restore the World Bank guarantee. Officials described the move as essential to repairing Ghana’s standing with multilateral lenders and foreign investors, many of whom had grown wary of the country’s ability to honor long-term payment commitments.

At the same time, the government settled approximately $480 million in outstanding gas invoices owed to ENI and Vitol for electricity generation during the year, bringing Ghana fully up to date on its obligations to the Sankofa partners. Finance ministry officials say budgetary provisions have now been secured to ensure timely payments going forward.

The administration has also turned its attention to other upstream producers. Negotiations with Tullow Oil and partners in the Jubilee Field have produced what the government describes as a comprehensive roadmap for settling gas offtake payments, an effort officials link to broader plans to support reliable nationwide electricity supply and expand industrial output.

Those engagements, the Energy Ministry says, are already yielding results. Gas production has increased, guided by a strategy to scale up domestic supply and reduce reliance on costlier liquid fuels, a shift long advocated by energy economists concerned about Ghana’s exposure to volatile global oil prices.

A significant portion of the 2025 payments went toward clearing legacy debts owed to Independent Power Producers, whose unpaid invoices have historically contributed to balance-sheet stress across the sector. The government paid about $393 million to IPPs during the year, including major settlements with Karpowership Ghana, Sunon Asogli, Cenpower, Amandi and other operators.

In parallel, officials say they have renegotiated all existing IPP agreements to improve value for money, a politically sensitive process in a sector where take-or-pay contracts have often drawn public criticism.

Beyond clearing arrears, the government has emphasized stricter enforcement of the Cash Waterfall Mechanism, a payment system designed to ensure that revenues collected across the power sector are distributed transparently and predictably. According to the Ministry of Energy, Ghana has remained largely current on IPP invoices for 2025 a marked departure from past patterns.

In a statement accompanying the figures, the government sought to strike a forward-looking tone. “The era of uncontrolled energy sector debt accumulation is over,” it said, assuring citizens, industry players and international partners that reforms now underway are intended to be durable.

Whether the reset will hold depends on continued fiscal restraint and sustained growth in electricity demand. But for now, analysts say, the aggressive cleanup of energy sector liabilities has removed a major overhang from Ghana’s economic outlook and signaled a renewed effort to restore trust in one of the country’s most critical industries.

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