In northern Ghana, they have an incredible potential for agriculture, for one thing. Yet you see these huge tracts of land that are unproductive, and there is nothing happening. I understand that these are tribally held lands.
There were many things as a visitor that you get frustrated seeing. One is education. When I visited a school, I thought I got there during recess. After half an hour, you realize that they're not in recess.
There was a Dutch company, and you may be familiar with them. They've started to enable farmers to take larger tracts of land. They give them equipment, seed, and fertilizer, and then they hold the seed. How do we convince those who hold the land to let it go? I think that's the biggest problem in northern Ghana in agriculture.
Before we went to Tamale, we visited with the MPs, and they just about pleaded with us to help them build roads and railroads. The Chinese are doing it, and they were basically asking us to do it before they do. They don't want them to do it, to have that happen to them. It was kind of pathetic. Do we, as governments, focus on those things? You'll have criticisms that you're helping the mining companies and all those others. Yet to these people, that was the most important thing: roads and railroads.
It's on those two things, the agriculture and the issue with the Chinese.