Government has been urged to face up to the reality that the country is broke and chart a new path with agricultural development as key to help address her economic challenges for a better future.
Ghana’s rising debt stock due to excessive borrowing, inequitable taxation, lack of investment in the agricultural sector and the prevailing situation where public sector workers kept demanding better conditions of service with government’s inability to meet demands have been cited as indications of Ghana`s penniless status.
Kenneth Kwamina Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Limited expressed these lamentations in Accra during a programme organized by his outfit in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) under the theme: “Ghana in a Rat Race in Abundance of Water; Ghana’s Economy in 2016.’’
Ghana, he said abounds with the right people, knowledge, skills and the required resources which are capable to lead in development of the entire economy. He abhorred the huge sums of money spent on capacity building and said Ghana`s economic woes are self-inflicted.
Mr. Thompson called for a paradigm shift in the management of the nation’s resources to help change the economic fortunes of the country. Ghana, the Dalex CEO said, can become an exporter of manufactured and process products for foreign exchange earnings in the short to medium term.
He advocated for a dedicated focus on Agriculture which has a comparative advantage to turn the economic fortunes of the country around. The country, Mr Thompson said, is in a rat race in the abundance of water whiles her people are thirsty due to corruption on the part of its leaders across the political divide.
“Ghana’s economic woes defy solutions mainly due to a “Rat Race” defined as, a fiercely competitive struggle for wealth by corrupt means. Ghanaian political elite on both sides of the political divide and their complicit technocrats are the ones engaged in this “Rat Race,” he stated.
According to him, Ghana`s leadership in recent years are managing the economy in a manner capable of throwing away the country`s destiny in exchange for ill-gotten gains such as 4-wheel drive vehicles, houses in gated communities, children schooled abroad among others.
He questioned why Ghana’s economy, one of the fastest growing economy in the world has gone into steep decline.
The Dalex boss advocated for enforcement of existing rules of showing equivalent tax returns when registering any property such as land, houses, companies and cars and recommended for harsh punishment for corruption.
By CHRISTIAN KPESESE
