Whatever happened to the 'jewel' and benchmark country?

Dear friends,

I believe some of you are following the turn out in Ghana over past 5 years.
The 'west' had in 2010 tagged them a benchmark country .. Infact, it was the first country President Obama visited in Africa and went short of proclaiming that other African countries should take a cue from ghana on how to provide leadership for their teeming population.

'Investors' poured in with cash claiming Ghana as the best place to do business in Africa.
Some facts - Ghana ports are wide open for anyone to import whatever , retail shelves are littered with imported items like water etc.They got huge praises for that. Some of my Asian friends in ghana used to tell me that Nigeria should borrow a leaf from ghana if it must make progress.

As usual, Nigerians became the official 'marketers' of the Ghana story. Some of the comments here under:
- Ghana has 24 HR power - meanwhile my office in accra had power outage for over 8hrs everyday then in late 2000s.
- Ghana is best in education
- Ghana's health insurance system should be a model for Nigeria.
- ghana's infrastructure is comparable to that of some western countries.
- Go to Ghana and see a world class airport.
- industries are closing down in Nigeria and relocating the ghana.
- the retail industry is very organised - whatever that means!!
- unlike the chaos in Nigeria, you cannot buy a medicine without prescription in Ghana.
- oil discovered in 2007

Let us take a look at Ghana today:
- power outage is the order of the day. They blame Nigeria for this - they did not praise Nigeria when power supply was ok in their country.
- ghana's economy is on a sick bed - IMF is now almost running , supported by Nigeria. Interesting.
- debt to GDP ratio is 64%..na waa o. Check your economics please to be sure you understand this.
- budget deficit hit 12%
- health insurance system collapsed with debts of over 24 months running-
- refinery has broken down and no money to fix it.
- roads in accra and Kumasi ageing and little repairs.
- WAEC pass rate is 28% - like most anglophone west Africa.
- accra airport is in an 'african'state.
- currency devalued 100% past 2 years.
- may ghananians now blame 'corruption' for their current state. Looks like they listen a lot to us.

In 2009, I was at an economist conference in Accra where these 'investors' were heaping praises on Ghana and as usual castigating Nigeria.
An informed Nigerian at the forum said something profound...
- why do you guys always want to throw brickbats at Nigeria for every 'positive' you see in Ghana. Both countries differ and trending in same direction but evolving differently.
He then sounded a note of warning ..
Ghana is a 'poor' country being 'deceived' that all is well. It is borrowing more than it can pay for --- apparently to keep building 'infrastructure' so it will continue to gain endorsement of our 'masters'. If they continue to dance to this music of the devil ... They will be in huge financial crisis in next 5 years.. How right was this informed analyst?

My teaser!!!

Why do many African countries still believe that a 'praise' form the west is a mark of progress?

Who do you think China listens to in effort to drive its development?

Is it about time we started to take with a pinch of salt ... Endorsement from some of our western allies?

What would be your perspective?

Regards.