We Sit On Huge Resources, Yet We Are Hungry – Prof Gyampo

A Political Scientist at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has bemoaned the poor state of the country’s economy.

Prof. Gyampo’s reaction follows the austerity measures announced by the Finance Minister last Thursday to cushion the citizenry amid the current economic crisis.

The Political Scientist questioned the rationale behind government’s decision to borrow $2 billion to help stabilise the depreciating local currency.

“The thinking behind borrowing $ 2 billion to put in place a single intervention that will contribute to earning ¢3.6 billion is quite problematic,” he said.

In an open letter, he noted that government has failed woefully to utilise the country’s enormous resources to generate enough revenue.

“We have money and huge resources, just that the political elites are failing to think about how we can effectively raise them. Why are we getting only 5 percent of our mineral resources and not 50 or 60 percent as happens elsewhere? Why are we getting only about 13 percent of our oil revenues and not about 60 percent?” he quizzed.

He further wondered why government is not able to accrue enough proceeds from the country’s resources.

“What prevents the current political elites from renegotiating such deals to get us bigger revenues from natural resources being exploited from our own land for the development of other people’s countries?”

According to him, instead of government’s undying quest to pass the E-levy, it should rather renegotiate agreements with some of the multinational companies exploiting the country’s resources to settle for better agreements that would generate more revenue for the country.

Prof. Gyampo urged the government to be more committed to reviving the economy and shun the mere rhetorics.

“It is true, y3 tse sika so, nanso okom de y3n. We sit on huge resources, yet we are hungry. Our leaders must think through some of these areas of resource mobilization and show a little more commitment beyond the rhetorics to help us achieve beyond mediocrity. For those who have done these to bring about development in their countries are not better human beings than us,” Prof, Gyampo said.

He stressed that government’s “penchant to spend much effort and waste time just to raise pittance, when we actually can do more to raise more” is unfair to the ideals and dogmas of governance.

He partly blamed government’s failure on the “deep-seated ignorance” and politicisation of every issue by Ghanaians.