The President of Ashesi University, Dr. Patrick Awuah says Ghana can only achieve its long term goals of development if and when the public sector changes its hostile attitude towards the private sector.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday December 4, 2007, he spoke on a wide range of issues including leadership, education, infrastructure and the internet sector.

He told host Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, that for Ghana to be on track in her development agenda, the country must focus on the basics.

He said the public sector must change its hostile attitude towards the private sector and stop paying too much lip service to the sector. He argued that while economies are built on commerce and for which the country has acknowledged the private sector as the engine of growth, not much is being done by the public sector to develop the private sector.

Dr. Awuah expressed concern that for most part, the government’s tax revenue comes from import tax on goods that are not produced in Ghana. He considers that as a perversion.

He said the system has created an environment that puts local businesses in a stiff competition with foreign products.

He lamented the fact that Ghana is still poor after 50 years of independence. While agreeing that the country’s poverty is due to a combination of factors, he said, “a country remains poor because its government decides that it should remain poor.”

Dr. Awuah, pointed out the unfortunate situation where people in business are seen as enemies of the state and inventories are considered as hoarding.

According to him, by destroying the private sector, the base of the economy has been destroyed.

Speaking on leadership, he said, Ghana’s leaders are those who have received the most education in this country, and they have been put in various positions to make far reaching decisions that affect everyone, however, they have consistently made the wrong decisions.

Commenting on the role of ideology in nation building, he said after the World War II, most countries chose socialist ideologies and others chose free market ideologies.

According to him, it is those who chose free market ideologies that have become successful.

Speaking about the internet sector, Dr. Awuah wondered aloud, how the National Communication Authority could happily license about 114 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) but only 27 are in business in the country and the public institution does not care.

He said in other countries one does not need to pay for a license to operate the unlicensed wifi spectrum, but in Ghana, one is expected to pay for it. He said, this situation makes the provision of internet services more costly and therefore, denying many companies the ability to set up businesses in the industry.

He said, if the ISPs have been able to set up, that would have meant more jobs. Many more people would have access to the internet and be more productive. He also said, it would be prudent to allow these companies to set up, make some profit so that government could tax them, instead of making it impossible for them to set up at all. He added that this situation deprives the country of appropraite revenues hence she remains poor.

On education, he said the country’s education system is in crisis. He said all the country’s schools are overcrowded, right from the primary to the university level. There are also no teachers to teach.

He said education is very important to a country’s development and should be looked at seriously, advising that government should involve the private sector in education and serve as a catalyst for the development of the sector, because that is less expensive.

He cited the example again of South Korea where the government decided to give a majority of its citizens university education. He said, the government involved the private sector and subsequently 80% of South Koreans are in university and 85% of all those in university are in private universities.

He suggested that government must do a lot to move the country out of poverty, by enforcing laws, have stable laws, property rights, a liberal market policy where it is the regulator of quality and not price. He said government must take up the primary responsibility for well educated and healthy citizens.

Government must also be a good customer of made in Ghana goods, a good employer and pay Ghanaian companies on time when they have completed government contracts, he said.

He advised that government must build in all Ghanaians a culture of paying taxes and this he said, must be taught in the schools.

How the birth of his child changed everything

This brief about Dr. Awuah was first published in 2005


After living in the United States for nearly 20 years, Patrick Awuah moved back to his native Ghana, in West Africa, to start a new university in hopes of educating Africa's next generation of leaders. Ashesi -- which means new beginnings -- recently held its first graduation.

Awuah, the 40-year old founder and president of Ashesi University, left Ghana in the mid-1980s, when the country was under military rule. He graduated from Swarthmore College with an engineering degree in 1990. Soon after, he joined Microsoft, moved to Seattle and became a millionaire before he was 30.

"I left Ghana quite idealistic," Awuah says. "I felt that I would get a great education, I would get some expertise, I'd be very needed here and come back. Well, having worked at Microsoft, having lived in the United States for five years, I changed. And I just felt like, if I ever come back here, I lose everything."

But becoming a father made Awuah reconsider moving back to Ghana. "Having a son caused me to reevaluate all my priorities," he says. "This was something that was eating at me. What kind of world is it that my son is going to grow up in? And how is Africa represented in that world?"

That question prompted Awuah, to relocate to Ghana with his American wife, Rebecca, young son, Nana Yaw, and infant daughter, Afia. His goal: to establish an Ivy League-quality university in his home country and train the next generation of African leaders, with a focus on ethical entrepreneurship and integrity. His wife bought into that dream, and the Awuahs invested more than half a million dollars in the Ashesi project.

Awuah still travels to Seattle to fund-raise for Ashesi. He counts some of his former Microsoft colleagues among those -- including private foundations and corporations -- who have contributed to the $4.5 million used to build the university since 1999.

A Unique University in Africa

Ashesi is a private, hi-tech university in a leafy residential suburb of Ghana's capital city, Accra. Its campus and facilities present a stark contrast to Ghana's five public universities. At these government colleges, enrollment has soared to 65,000 since 1990, and overcrowded lecture halls, substandard student residences, rising tuition fees and poor staff salaries have led to angry protests and frequent strikes. However, tuition at public universities is also much cheaper than the $4,500 in fees that Ashesi charges.

Ashesi's latest freshman class has 90 students; its total student population is 220, and its staff is well paid. About 80 percent of the university's students are from Ghana. The rest are from other nations in Africa, a continent where most children don't go beyond elementary or high school, let alone finish college. Awuah says about half the students receive financial aid.

On Dec. 17, four years after enrolling its first crop of freshmen, Ashesi issued its first diplomas to a graduating class of 20 students. Nina Marini, a former graduate school classmate of Awuah's at the University of California at Berkeley, flew in from Seattle for the commencement ceremony. Marini co-founded Ashesi and is one of the university's trustees.

"It's been an incredible journey, coming from something that was in Patrick's mind as a vision, as a dream, and being part of really taking every step with him in terms of realizing it," Marini says.

From Dreams to Action

Ashesi offers two four-year degrees, in computer science and business administration, both of which also emphasize a broad foundation in liberal arts. Derrydean Dadzie, a third-year computer science major, says his time at the university has changed him. "I always say that Ashesi is like going through a goldsmith's place," Dadzie says. "You're like raw gold. The school is like a furnace. The heat from all the courses, from the professors, from the projects that you undertake -- you come out as a refined substance, you come out glittering. You dream beyond your world."

Elizabeth Ohene, Ghana's minister in charge of universities, attended the recent graduation ceremony. She says Awuah is making a valuable contribution to higher education in the country. "One is very grateful for people like Patrick Awuah who have taken up this challenge, and for what he is doing here," she says. "The old way of the state providing tertiary education for everybody who wants to go is obviously not sustainable."

Andrew Tarawali, a graduating senior from Sierra Leone, says attending Ashesi was a turning point. "We've said a lot about how different we are, how we are going to change Africa, how we are the hope," Tarawali says. "The world is going to be watching to see whether the truth was said."

Awuah is proud of his first graduating class, but he still recalls the trepidation with which he first greeted these students four years ago. "The moment that students walked into the gates at Ashesi, my emotions were wild," he says. "I was very excited, but I also wanted to crawl under my desk, because these were human beings, people's kids who had put their lives in my hands, their future careers in my hands. That was scary."

Asked if he would like to see his dream replicated across Africa, Awuah says, "Yes. But I think that dreams that don't go with action are not very useful."


Source: npr.org