President John Dramani Mahama captivated attendees at the 2025 Kwahu Business Forum with a candid personal story that underscored a central theme of the gathering: the importance of trust and integrity in business partnerships.
Addressing a hall of entrepreneurs, investors, and political leaders, at Kwahu-Mpreaso in the Eastern Region today, President Mahama turned away from policy rhetoric to share a deeply personal experience involving a failed transport venture that served as a metaphor for Ghana’s broader economic and human resource challenges.
“More than ten years ago, I bought a bus for a relative to run a small business. The goal was to ease the financial burden on my parliamentary salary,” he began. “But it became one of the most regrettable experiences of my life.”
John Mahama explained that the bus was consistently overloaded by the driver, leading to repeated mechanical breakdowns.
“And anytime you saw the bus, the bus had more load on top of it than in it. Eventually, the axle broke. When that happened, they came back to me asking for a new one,” he said.
Rather than relieving financial pressure, the venture became a drain on his resources.
“Every time it broke down, they’d return to me for repairs. I realized it was costing me more to fix it than the business was worth. So I stopped repairing it and sold the bus.”
In a twist that drew amused murmurs from the crowd, Mahama revealed the driver had started building a house with the proceeds.
“The house reached lintel level before I sold the bus. It’s still at lintel level today.”
Though humorous, the story was meant to emphasize a deeper issue. “This speaks to a bigger problem – the lack of trustworthy partners in our business ecosystem,” Mahama stressed.
“We have business owners who now prefer to hire foreign managers simply because they can’t trust our own people. That’s a tragedy.”
His remarks were in direct response to Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin’s earlier observation that the collapse of many local businesses is often rooted in human failings rather than financial shortcomings.
President Mahama warned that if greed and dishonesty continue to undermine ventures, Ghana’s industrial base will never flourish.
“If you want to suck your pound of flesh from a business and kill it, then no industry will grow,” he cautioned.
Beyond trust, John Mahama pivoted to address the forum’s broader theme: economic transformation and opportunity.
Urging African nations to position themselves strategically amid shifting global dynamics, he stated, “The world is changing, and new opportunities are emerging. Africa must take advantage.”
He highlighted global trade wars and supply chain reconfigurations as a chance for Africa to transition from trade-based economies to industrial and tech-driven ones.
“We must stop seeing ourselves as just traders. We can be manufacturers, digital entrepreneurs, and innovators. We can be anything we want,” he declared.
The Kwahu Business Forum brought together stakeholders from across the public and private sectors, serving as a platform for bold ideas on economic development, entrepreneurship, and industrial policy.
–BY Daniel Bampoe
