“We Are Solving the Wrong Problem” — Joe Jackson Questions Ghana’s Economic Diagnosis

 

Ghana’s economic challenges are being misread through long-standing but misleading assumptions, and that is distorting policy responses. That was the central argument advanced by Joe Jackson, Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance, at a public lecture organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG).

Speaking on the theme “Ananse Stories about Ghana’s Economy,” Jackson said many dominant explanations for the country’s economic difficulties are “convincing, widely repeated, but not entirely accurate,” drawing on folklore to illustrate how narratives can shape flawed policy thinking.

He argued that Ghana’s constraint is not only policy-related, but rooted in how the economy is understood and interpreted.

Challenging the cedi narrative

Jackson pushed back against the widely held view that the cedi’s weakness is primarily the result of excessive imports and weak exports.

Citing trade performance data, he noted that Ghana has often recorded trade surpluses raising questions about why currency pressure persists despite that position.

“Why is the cedi under pressure when trade balance is persistently positive?” he asked.

In his view, the explanation lies elsewhere: structural outflows that erode domestic retention of foreign exchange. He pointed to profit repatriation by multinational firms, rising external debt servicing, service-related imports, and limited local control in key value chains.

“The cedi problem is less about import appetite and more about weak domestic retention of export value,” he said.

SMEs and the limits of scale

The Dalex Finance CEO also questioned Ghana’s long-running policy emphasis on SMEs as the primary engine of economic transformation.

While acknowledging their role in jobs and enterprise activity, he argued that the results have been underwhelming in terms of structural change.

“If launching SME programs created growth, Ghana should be an economic superpower by now,” he said.

He described many SMEs as survival-oriented, constrained by low productivity and fragmented access to capital, limiting their capacity to drive large-scale transformation.

Referencing economies such as South Korea and Singapore, Jackson argued that sustainable growth is typically anchored by a smaller base of highly productive, scalable firms rather than a broad mass of micro-enterprises.

The question of ownership and value control

Beyond macroeconomic indicators, Jackson framed Ghana’s deeper challenge as structural ownership of economic value.

He warned that without building strong domestic firms capable of scaling and retaining value within the economy, dependence on external actors will persist.

“Until Ghana builds companies that own, control, and scale value, we will remain tenants in our own economy,” he said.

He called for a strategic shift toward the development of national champions, stronger local participation in extractive industries, deeper mobilisation of domestic capital, and deliberate movement up the value chain.

Policy implications

Jackson cautioned that misdiagnosis of economic challenges risks reinforcing ineffective interventions, sustaining currency volatility, limiting job creation, and creating what he described as an “illusion of progress.”

He stressed that reframing the narrative is essential for meaningful economic transformation.

“We are solving the wrong problem,” he said.

The CIMG-hosted lecture convened policymakers, business leaders, marketers, and finance professionals, many of whom described the discussion as a sharp challenge to conventional economic thinking.

The session ended with an interactive exchange on the implications of Jackson’s arguments for Ghana’s long-term economic strategy and growth model.