'Sustained economic growth will ensure more jobs'

Spread Feb 16/2008

Story: Graphic Reporters

INDUSTRY leaders in the country have said it is refreshing to have heard President Kufuor acknowledge the need to move from macro-economic stability in the economy to growth at his last State of the Nation Address delivered on Thursday. Reports Boahene Asamoah.
According to them, while macro-economic stability was a necessary condition for economic growth, it was not sufficient.
Speaking in two separate interviews, the presidents of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), the umbrella organisation of trade and industry, Mr Wilson Atta Krofah, and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Mr Tony Oteng-Gyasi, stressed the need for the necessary policies to be pursued to ensure growth in the economy.
According to Mr Oteng-Gyasi, “sustained economic growth is the surest way to go to ensure employment generation and economic development”.
He, however, said the process of ensuring economic take-off should not be left to the next government to pursue, saying that the present government ought to start the process of ensuring economic growth.
Mr Oteng-Gyasi mentioned the need to look at the micro level to address constraints that affected the different micro sectors of the economy, adding that such a policy would help to address the shortfalls in the various sectors and fashion out a strategy to address the constraints in each sector.
He also mentioned the need for a second look to be taken at the Labour Law, stressing that a “one-size” labour policy for all sectors was not appropriate.
The President of the AGI stated that the Labour Law, as it existed now, did not address the concerns of all the sectors of the economy, adding that “there should be specific labour laws for different sectors”.
On the interest charges by banks, Mr Oteng-Gyasi said the central bank had to play a more facilitating role by ensuring that banks reduced interest rates.
“These are the kind of policies that will help to anchor industrial take-off,” he stated.
For his part, Mr Krofah stated that while there had been some achievement in maintaining macro-economic stability, a lot still needed to be done.
He said the issue of mechanised agriculture needed to be given priority attention, since that would lead to industrialisation of the economy and propel economic growth and development.
He said there was the need for the government to pursue that agenda more vigorously to attract investments into the agricultural sector as part of its policy to modernise agriculture.
Mr Krofah noted that agricultural mechanisation had the potential to break the back of unemployment in the country and also accelerate the country’s pace of development.
On the oil find in the country, Mr Krofah said the government must ensure that the country benefited from the find, adding that “the country must be able to negotiate for about 30 per cent of the deal instead of the current 10 per cent being speculated”.
Again, he said Ghanaian entrepreneurs must be encouraged to take advantage of downstream businesses associated with the oil industry, stressing that “Ghanaian entrepreneurs must take centre stage in this business”.
The President of the GNCCI welcomed President’s Kufuor’s decision to set up a committee that would manage the resources from the oil find to yield greater benefits for all Ghanaians.
In another development, a researcher at the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, Dr Robert Darko Osei, has also said the next government must work towards consolidating the gains achieved by the Kufuor administration by ensuring that the manufacturing sector becomes vibrant to accelerate the growth of the economy, reports Charles Benoni Okine
Dr Osei, who was expressing his views on the President’s State of the Nation Address, noted that the country abounded in a lot of natural resources and that adding value to them before export would improve the manufacturing sector and create jobs for the majority of the people.
According to him, in spite of the relatively stable macro-economic situation under the Kufuor administration, many people still lacked jobs because most of Ghana’s raw materials, including cocoa and the non-traditional products such as pineapples, mango and oranges, were exported in the raw form.
He said, for instance, that although Ghana earned some money from royalties paid on gold, it was not enough to sustain the economy and called for a solid manufacturing sector to add value to the country’s gold and create jobs for the people.
Dr Osei noted that the government focused on providing the platform for accelerated growth which had been largely achieved through macro-economic stability.
Inflation, which hovered around 40 per cent in 2001, had been reduced to about 11 per cent, while interest rates, which also stood at about 52 per cent during the same period, had dropped to between 18 and 23 per cent, he said.
In spite of those achievements, he said, many people continued to complain about the lack of money to cater for their basic needs.
He described the micro-economic aspect of every economy as crucial if people were to benefit from the successes of a regime.
Dr Osei pointed out that the economy had been able to withstand external and internal shocks such as high crude oil prices and the energy crisis because of the heavy inflows from donors.
He mentioned the Multi-Donor Budgetary Support (MDBS), a basket into which many of the country’s donors put money for the government to use to enhance its development agenda, and inflows from the HIPC initiative as some of the major cushions of the economy.
Dr Osei cautioned, however, that that inflow of resources was not sustainable and added that when those resources dwindled, it would negatively impact on the country’s economy, as was the case in the past.
It was against that background that he asked for the strengthening of the manufacturing sector to propel the country to the next level.
Caroline Boateng also reports that the Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, said the President missed the opportunity to assure all of peaceful elections, the prudent exploitation of the country’s oil find and a country free of drugs.
He said the President’s comments on the professionalism and neutrality of staff of the Electoral Commission (EC) could be right but said that could not be depended on for peaceful elections.
Dr Akwetey said no one could assume that peaceful elections had been assured based on the President’s statement that the EC was professional and neutral.
“In Kenya, enormous pressure was brought to bear on the electoral commission there, leading to the mess created there now,” he said.
He said public education was needed at the electoral levels to secure the credibility of the voting process, the counting of the ballots and the transfer of results to the headquarters of the EC.
On the security of the country and the challenge of drug trafficking, Dr Akwetey was not happy that the President did not give details of measures to improve and strengthen security agencies in the country.
He said issues about the substitution of drugs in the custody of the police with other substances and the alleged complicity of the security agencies in the trafficking of drugs were worrying and needed a Presidential pronouncement to assure Ghanaians on how the government was tackling those problems.
A lawyer and acting Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Prof Kofi Quashigah, shared similar views, saying that the issue of drugs, conflicts and the security of the country were important issues that should have been talked about in the President’s address.
He said those issues tended to undermine the gains made in good governance and needed clear-cut measures from the President on how they were to be solved.
Prof Quashigah expressed the hope that the President’s announcement of a commission to administer the oil find of the country would not only be limited to the resources gained but extend to establishing prudent initiatives to reduce the harmful environmental effects of exploration.