Ghanaian Minister Calls for More Investment in Africa

Owusu-Adjapong talks at the AFCOM conference

Washington -- On the first day of the 10th annual AFCOM conference, Ghana's minister of transport and communications made clear that fulfillment of his mission -- to help develop an expansive network of transportation that includes roads, airports, railways, and maritime channels -- will require more investment in Africa.

F.K. Owusu-Adjapong spoke about his job in a July 18 interview at AFCOM, a three-day gathering of telecommunication executives and African officials held in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington.

Owusu-Adjapong's task of attracting investment isn't easy, he said, citing the fear that some businesses have about investing in Africa. Yet, he said, part of pursuing development is "a question of trying to persuade investors that they stand to gain by coming to Ghana."

"I'm here to present the fact that Ghana is a good place to invest," he said.

The minister, who has been in his post less than a year, thinks that once Ghana's transportation systems begin to fall into place, communication systems will follow their lead. "Whatever technique you use in solving the aviation [and road and rail] problem, you can use to solve your communication problem," he said.

But he must contend with the disparity in access to technology in Africa known as the "digital divide" -- a term the promoters of AFCOM have shunned in favor of "digital development," which U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell spoke of in his address to conference participants. Only one of every 50 of the world's people who subscribe to a fixed telephone line, which can provide Internet access, live in Africa, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

Owusu-Adjapong hopes to have 600,000 fixed lines in Ghana, a nation of 19 million people, within two years. Five million Africans currently use the Internet, according to the research and consulting firm BMI TechKnowledge.

A major player in promoting digital development, the minister said, is a Seattle-based company that now serves as a competitor to the dominant Ghana Telecom organization, which operates 200,000 of the country's fixed lines. He is looking for a third competitor to give consumers more choice.

The development of roads is of major importance in Ghana, Owusu-Adjapong said. In fact, under the old position of minister for roads and transport, overseeing Ghana's 22,000 kilometers of roads required 90 percent of the minister's budget and 70 percent of staff time, leaving the minister little time to deal with other transportation issues, according to Owusu-Adjapong.

So in 1997, the post was split in two, and now the minister for roads and highways deals exclusively with roads, while Owusu-Adjapong deals with other aspects of transportation and communications.

"I'm not developing physical infrastructure, but I'm supposed to make sure that we have vehicles running safely and in a disciplined manner," he said.

He mentioned his current talks with an American investor trying to get buses from New Mexico to Ghana by means of a loan with the Ex-Im Bank, which provides U.S. exporters with the financing tools they need to successfully compete for business in Africa.

The buses are part of Owusu-Adjapong's vision of a network of mass transportation, complete with the privatization of all marine operations; working airports as good as U.S. regional airports; and a rail system that expands northward to Burkina Faso, eastward to Togo, and westward to Ivory Coast, and eventually becomes part of the Trans-African rail network.

He plans to start at the city level and work outward. "We are talking to private investors who prefer to do intra-urban transportation, so that at some point, we may be able to create dedicated bus routes to promote discipline on our roads and ensure our people an effective way of moving within town.

"If [bus routes] work in urban areas," he said, "they'll link to the rural areas."