Mr Oteng-Gyasi said the general refrain
in Ghana that “no country has developed under the watch of the IMF and World
Bank” was “patently false”, referencing the economies of China and other
so-called Asian Tigers as having first triumphed under the watch of the two
international financial institutions.
Delivering the University of Ghana’s 2023 Alumni Lecture in Accra
yesterday, the corporate governance expert said while other countries dutifully
followed and implemented the recommendations of these institutions, pride and
indiscipline made Ghana and other African countries to treat their advice
half-heartedly, leading to the limited economic growth.
“Across Asia, these institutions have given advice and helped
nations grow their economies remarkably well.
These institutions produced the Asian Tigers,” the former Chairman
of the University of Ghana Council said.
“In Africa, we want to be Lions, but
ignore the medicine the Asians took assiduously.
“From the free zones concept as part of the export promotion
strategy, to the Gratis Technology centres as a foundation for industrial
development, and regular tax policy advice, the World Bank and IMF have given
good and useful policy advice to our nation,” he said at the event graced by
past and continuing students, members of academia and the business community.
Previous speakers
Mr Oteng-Gyasi became the 34th speaker and the second person from
the private sector at the eminent speaker series instituted by the University
of Ghana Alumni Association (UGAA) in 1974 for thought-provoking lectures on
issues of national importance.
This year’s event, which coincided with
the 75th anniversary of the university, was on the theme: “The Fault Dear
Brutus…”
It was chaired by the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nana Abba
Appiah Amfo.
Mr Oteng-Gyasi’s intellectually
stimulating lecture touched on economic development and policy formulations,
public sector procurement and rent seeking, and natural resource endowment and
their exploitations, among others.
Struggling manufacturing
The celebrated entrepreneur also blamed Ghana’s poor showing in
manufacturing over the years on the lack of a realistic manufacturing promotion
policy, the absence of value chains and easier ways of making money through
importation.
The Chairman of the Board of the Ghana Revenue Authority recalled
that while the International Finance Corporation struggled to find adequate
bankable manufacturing projects to support in Ghana, many of the nation’s best
and brightest found it easier to spend their energies on obtaining lucrative
public contracts for imported goods and services rather than the hard work
involved in setting up and growing manufacturing industries.
He said that was because the reward system was skewed towards
importation, as national policies at the micro sector level did not support
production.
“Instead, every policy, from insistence on exchange rate stability
in the face of local inflation to the many legislated exemptions from import
duty, undermines local production efforts.
“Even local content rules are allowed exemptions under the law.
In short order, the exemption becomes the
norm,” he said.
Nation of traders
Mr Oteng-Gyasi also stated that the country’s poor record at
enforcing laws such as those on import duty regimes and local content rules had
given traders and importers a clear advantage over local producers.
That, he said, had created a nation of traders that had lost the
quality and career-building manufacturing jobs that nurtured and grew
middle-class families.
“We are rapidly becoming a society of a small affluent minority
benefiting from economic rent, public procurement and trading monopolies, and a
vast unemployed and underemployed majority stuck in low-skill and dead-end
trading and service industry jobs.
“In the process, the politics of appeasement of this majority, with
low prices and free social programmes because of their voting power, becomes
the route to seeking power and retaining political power,” he said.
Galamsey
Turning his attention to illegal mining, popularly called galamsey,
Mr Oteng-Gyasi said the menace indicated that the country had not learned from
the damage illegal logging did to the nation.
He said the galamsey scourge reminded him eerily of the lost fight
against illegal logging and the consequences that awaited the nation.
“I remember the then government’s fight against illegal logging to
the extent that sales and distribution of chainsaws were monitored and
controlled.
But people found ways around government policy by smuggling in
chainsaws through our land borders.
“We were like a people determined, despite the best efforts of our
government, to destroy our timber resources for a pittance.
As a result, choice timber species like Afromosia, Odum, Asanfona
and the famous Mahogany were exploited into extinction,” he said.
“The Mercedes Benz vehicles they sold our timber logs to purchase
are long broken down.
Meanwhile, we face massive reforestation bills.
“This example of our timber industry is an indication of where our
illegal mining recklessness could lead our nation to,” Mr Oteng-Gyasi warned.
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