WHY JM's 10bn INVESTMENT PLAN (THE BIG PUSH) IS THE GAME CHANGER FOR GHANA's DEVELOPMENTAL NARRATIVE The former PRESIDENT John Dramani Mahama has announced in the NDC's 2020 Manifesto that he will deploy 10bn worth of infrastructure to facilitate the country's development and create jobs, these are the reasons I think it's a game changer. The Big Push will provide the needed ground speed needed for Ghana's economy to be airborn. Our high social overhead costs ie low infrastructure makes the cost of doing business ecxessively high in Ghana. This makes Ghanaian industries uncompetitive in the global market square. China discovered this early and invested, that is why they have become the worlds factory. They have the worlds fastest commercial train in the world - the Maglev with a peak speed of 431km/h. This could enable me to move from my birth village Bekwai to the central business district of Kumasi in about 5 minutes, or allow the minority leader to live in Tamale and work in parliament house in Accra. He will make the journey in less than two hours, less time than some people spend commuting from one part of Accra to the other. Our industries are suffering because of the the high cost of doing business in Ghana, mainly due to the the high cost of land, utilities, and sourcing raw materials. 1. Land is not expensive outside Accra but the high cost and inefficient transport system makes it almost impossible to site industries outside Accra without incurring huge losses in terms of sourcing raw materials and sending finished products to the market. 2. The high transportation costs incurred by industries sourcing raw materials from the hinterland are due mainly to poor roads. Some industries find it cheaper buying soya from Brazil than buying them from northern ghana. With good and efficient roads we can reverse that. Not only will industry sources cheap raw materials locally, farmers will also have lucrative market for their produce. That will make our industry more competitive. 3. The construction sector that will be the main recipient of this huge funding will be able to employ many young women and man even before the effects on industry are felt.This also creates purchasing power for other productive sectors. 4. Huge infrastructure programs like these are far superior to subsidizing particularly industries because they reduce the cost for every industry to flourish. Industries are more likely to crumble under rising costs if targeted subsidies are withdrawn. 5. This kind of infrastructure investment level the playing field for all superior business models to flourish. Under 1d1f, the government is basically picking winners and giving them the competitive advantage even if their business model is not superior. There are numerous obstacles militating agains growth and industralization and competiveness of our industries in this country, on top of this list is the low level of social overhead cost or infrastructure consisting of transport, power, communications, and such other public utilities.The Big Push seeks to overcome these militating factors by creating external economies. To explain the emergence of such external economies and their transmission, let us consider two industries Global Haulage (GH) a transport company and Cocoa Processing Company (CPC). If the GH expands because of the reduction in cost because roads are now motorable, it shall derive certain internal economies. This may result in the lowering of the price for the services of GH. Now if CPC uses GH’s services as an input, the benefits of GH’s internal economies shall then be passed on to CPC in the form of pecuniary external economies. Thus, “the profits of CPC created by the lower prices of GH's services call for investment and expansion in CPC, one result of which will be an increase in CPC’s demand for GH’s services. This in turn will give rise to profits and call for further investment and expansion of GH.In all these feedback investments, jobs will be created along each round in addition to increased tax revenue. To provide infrastructures, it is necessary to make ‘lumpy’ investments in them. And their creation is a precondition to the investments in directly productive and other quick-yielding productive activities. Only then the way for a self-generating economy can be paved. Thus the absence of adequate social overhead capital constitutes the most important bottleneck in our development process. Besides these, the infrastruture provided also reduces the social overhead cost for several industries, the synesgistic effect is even higher if the industries are interdependent. The reduced cost will also enable Ghanaian industries to ascend into the arena of global value chains as a result of the enhanced competitiveness. These investments across different channels of growth will enable each channel sustains the growth of others by providing the necessary demand-base. Thus, it leads towards the Balanced Growth. This is a destiny changing policy and I call on all Ghanaians to support and advocate for it.