The Chief Executive Director of the Institute of Certified Economists of Ghana, ICEG, Prof. Peter Tuffuo Asubonteng has warned that Ghana risks suffering from another round of challenging economic times it faced couple of years back, if some fundamentals are not implemented to stem them.
In his view, successive governments have failed to adopt what he considers as pragmatic solutions in addressing the challenges facing the country to get it out of the woods.
The Economist’s caution comes as a response to his expectation of the Ghanaian economy before and after the general elections.
Speaking to Citi Business News, Professor Asubonteng maintained that the relative stability in some economic fundamentals is temporarily to influence votes as has been the case in all election years.
“These things are only stabilizing for us to be able to go through the elections. They have to be adjusted to let people have the assurance that things have normalized and guide their vote. Just after the elections we will see the reality,” he stated.
“The reality is that we still have not solved our energy problems; we are playing around it because we have just touched and mentioned it. There are a lot of sources that we can rely on to solve the country’s energy problems. Because of industrialization, the country requires a lot of energy as a matter of fact if we have to rely on just the one hydro source, which is Akosombo, it cannot help.”
The ICEG boss further criticized the seemingly over-reliance on international agencies like the IMF and the World Bank for advice on economic decisions.
According to him, the inability of governments to engage the services of professionals could also be blamed for the difficulty in meeting some of the demands of international bodies that offer assistance to the country.
“In Ghana the risk of borrowing is very high and as an economist I believe that before we go for anything, we must undertake a lot of analysis and if it cannot hold, we need not.
“These international agencies will praise us for the good things and subsequently suggest that we go in for these forms of assistance.”
Meanwhile Professor Asubonteng is optimistic of a rebound in the economic performance if issues of high interest rates and cost of doing business are critically addressed to enable businesses expand and create more jobs in the country.
“If something about bank rates and others could be relooked into, it could help entrepreneurs and enable them add value to the production levels,” he observed.
–
By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana