The ultimate public servant [Article]

As an Economist, I never worked with Dr J.L.S. Abbey, or Joe Abbey, as everyone called him. And I never worked for him! He didn’t teach me either. But he had a lot of influence on how I did my work.

Dr Joe Abbey was the only Ghanaian Economist I know who used his professional stature to directly influence economic policymaking in Ghana over several years, and for different types of government. The first time I encountered Joe Abbey professionally was in May 1976. I was a student of Economics and Statistics at University of Ghana, and he gave me a job at the then Central Bureau of Statistics as a Vacation Employee. This was where I first learned how to do fieldwork, counting the number of schools in Teshie and Nungua, and documenting their physical condition. He was the Government Statistician, and I had been introduced to him by his late brother-in-law, Dr Samuel Stephen Aryeetey-Attoh.

I began to see his influence on policy making when he worked under Dr Robert Gardiner, then Commissioner for Economic Planning during the government of General I.K. Acheampong until 1978. In those days, he was described in the papers as Government Statistician/Government Economist. Dr Gardiner retired in May 1978, and Dr Joe Abbey took over the Ministry. A couple of months later, General Acheampong was removed from office by his colleagues on the Supreme Military Council, but Joe Abbey was retained in office by the new government of General Akuffo. As a young student, I saw how the malfunctioning centrally controlled economy of the Acheampong regime was given a new lease of life immediately as the state began to release its stranglehold on the various sectors of the economy. He positioned himself as the economic thinker behind the Akuffo government.

Dr Joe Abbey also survived the 1979 June 4th “house-cleaning exercise” of Jerry John Rawlings, continuing his work under the AFRC. He was thus in office at the Finance Ministry until September 1979, when the Limann Government took office. Joe Abbey had become indispensable, and even his ‘enemies’ knew they needed him. In that short period, I learned one thing from him: good policies can make a big difference, especially if they can be defended properly by those who propose them! He loved to use facts and figures to support anything he proposed. Joe Abbey believed strongly in the mainly market-driven policies he was proposing to the military government, and he was not afraid to defend them. He had the skill and the charisma to be effective. He knew that the markets could not do everything in the allocation of resources, and that the state should intervene only where it could be shown that the state would do it more effectively. Indeed he was a very hard-working and smart pragmatist, the basic quality required to be a very good public servant.

Dr Joe Abbey resurfaced in policy circles when Jerry John Rawlings returned to rule Ghana for the second time. He was first associated with various committees in charge of economic management. In this new dispensation, Joe had the extremely difficult responsibility of trying to market his ideas to a very skeptical group of political ideologues in power. Ironically, his work was made easier by the worsening economic conditions of 1983. The severe drought and the forced return of millions of Ghanaians from Nigeria forced the Ghana Government to look for new solutions. Joe Abbey provided the answers to the questions being posed by all Ghanaians: from whence cometh my help? Thus, when the Ghana Government met with the Bretton Woods Institutions to negotiate support for an Economic Recovery Programme, it was a good opportunity to test various propositions from a solid intellectual base. Joe provided the intellect and the confidence to debate policy options. First, he debated with his colleagues, and won many of them over; then he had to lead the debate with staffers from the Bretton Woods Institutions about feasible policy options. He was certainly no pushover for ideologues from those Bretton Woods institutions. He was certainly an Economist who could make governments listen to him.

After working as a diplomat from later in 1984, running Ghana’s missions in Ottawa, London and Washington, Dr Joe Abbey returned to Ghana to set up a think-tank, the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA). Joe believed that policy decisions needed to be subjected to rigorous analysis. By his own admission, if such an environment did not exist during his hey days at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, his travels around the world had helped him to appreciate better what it meant for new ideas to be challenged and contested using good analysis. That was how I got to know him a lot more closely. And that was how we became friends, with him more like my big brother.

Even though I never worked with CEPA, my interaction with Joe and his team grew steadily. I was at ISSER and he made it a point to invite me to participate in major engagements of his centre. He also never turned down any invitations from ISSER to participate in our events. I was glad that my big brother would sometimes ask for my opinion about things he wanted to do. Joe was always happy to share his experiences in policymaking with younger people. We discussed the economy of Ghana on many different occasions, and when he thought my position on any issue was wrong, he did not hesitate to state it. When I did not agree with him, I dared not say it because it would mean staying with him for another hour until I was ‘convinced’. Joe was always ready for a good debate and was bound to flourish in any environment that would lend him an ear.

I will remember Dr. Joseph Leo Sekoh Abbey as a fearless and courageous Economist who spoke his mind freely and acted on his convictions when he got the chance to do so. He was smart and very articulate. He used his knowledge to help make his country a better place whenever he had the opportunity.

I pray that the good Lord will grant him eternal rest.

Dr Joe Abbey, yaa wⴢ odzogbann