Economist Prof. William Baah Boateng has attributed the many challenges and developments in the banking industry to what he describes as the lack of reliable data to monitor activities in that sector.
The lack of reliable data in his view, is a major hindrance in arriving at proper decisions to address the impact of the crisis.
“Data is the fundamental thing that every country, every government must be very serious about; otherwise all the policies that we are implementing, we will not be able to monitor their effects,” he said.
The revocation of the licenses of seven banks over the past one year, has left in wake job losses and their attendant impact on livelihoods.
Both labour analysts and unions have recommended mechanisms to deal with the situation so as to reduce its impact.
The government has also suggested that it will embark on an ambitious model so as not to adversely impact the economic status and general well being of the affected workers.
Commenting on the job losses associated with the banking crisis, Prof Baah Boateng who also doubles as the Head of Economics Department at the University of Ghana, further cautioned that government will not be able to perceive the dire situation unless a right data system is introduced.
“There were some people who were working as casual workers, they may not even have their data so far as the bank is concerned; so how will they be able to capture the number of people who have lost their job? All these things are very important”.
“Even locating where an enterprise is to be able to tell them what they are; since 2003, 15 years now yet we have had no industrial sense of this, so how will we be able to know the number of projects that are collapsing, how many are coming up and so on. We have a challenge when it comes to data it is very difficult to gauge what is happening as far as some of these things are concerned,” he explained.
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana