The vice-president of the United States, Kamala Harris, has given the strongest signal since she arrived in Accra of the Biden administration’s intention to step up relations between the sole global superpower with countries across the African continent.
Vice-President Harris is in Ghana, where she began a nine-day three-nation tour of the African continent on Sunday (26 March 2023).
The tour will then take the vice-president and her husband (the second gentleman), Douglas Emhoff, to Tanzania as well as Zambia.
Bilateral talks
At the start of her three-day visit to Ghana, Vice-President Harris paid a courtesy call on President Akufo-Addo at the seat of Ghana’s presidency, Jubilee House, on Monday (27 March 2023).
After inspecting a guard of honour on the forecourt of Jubilee House, Vice-President Harris and her delegation proceeded to hold talks with President Akufo-Addo, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia and other members of a top-level Ghanaian government team.
President Akufo-Addo and Vice-President Harris after the bilateral engagement, held a joint press conference in the Banquet Hall of Jubilee House.
Coastal West Africa
Vice-President Harris announced that the Biden-Harris administration intends to invest more than $100 million to support conflict prevention and stabilisation efforts in coastal West Africa. The investment will include at least $86 million in funding over three years specifically dedicated to implementation of a new ten-year security plan.
The plan, Ms Harris said, “is intended to address regional threats of violent extremism and instability in coastal West Africa and enable the US government to work with Congress to marshal additional assistance to support efforts in the region over the coming years”.
“The United States supports the holistic approach being taken by Ghana, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Togo to address threats of violent extremism and instability, combining security, development, and peacebuilding,” Vice-President Harris said.
Economic support
On the subject matter of support for Ghana’s economic recovery and debt restructuring programme, Vice-President Harris noted: “The US department of the Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) will deploy a full-time resident advisor in 2023 to Accra to assist the Ministry of Finance in developing and executing medium-to-long-term reforms needed to improve debt sustainability and support a competitive, dynamic government debt market.
“The project will complement and build on the Government of Ghana’s debt restructuring efforts. This project is part of OTA’s ongoing engagement to strengthen public financial management and financial sector oversight across sub-Saharan Africa,” the US vice-president said.
“For 2023, OTA will execute 25 projects in 15 African countries. This includes eight new projects in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia, Tanzania, Gambia and Zambia in revenue policy and administration; budget and financial accountability; government debt issuance and infrastructure financing; banking and financial services; and economic crime,” Harris said.
Steadfast co-operation
President Akufo-Addo noted that Ghana’s relations with United States are of centuries’ standing and said they will endure for generations to come.
He observed that the purpose of the visit by the US vice-president is to reaffirm the ties of co-operation and bonds of friendship between the United States and Ghana.
“The vice-president and I discussed at length how to boost our political and economic relations, cultural and people to people exchanges, as well as out cooperation at the multilateral level,” President Akufo-Addo said.
“Our deliberations also centred on driving investment opportunities, domestic and foreign, into our two countries and the need for enhanced co-operation and partnership in our development efforts,” the president said.
“I happy to state that this afternoon’s meeting has further boosted the steadfast co-operation between us [Ghana and US] and Ghana will continue to collaborate with the United States of America at all levels, particularly towards a peaceful resolution of conflicts, and in the search for global peace and security to promote sustainable development around the world,” President Akufo-Addo said.
No to Al-Qaeda
In answer to a question posed by a New York Times journalist who sought to know whether or not there are Al-Qaeda elements operating in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo replied that he has no information on the presence or otherwise of Qaeda Islamist troops in Ghana.
“The presence of Al-Qaeda in Ghana? I don’t know,” President Akufo-Addo said.
“Formally, we don’t have any information to that effect. It may well be that there are cells and others already in the country, but those are matters that the security agencies are very much on top of, and we are hoping that there will be no Al-Qaeda presence in Ghana,” he said.
Wilberforce Asare
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