More integrity, honesty needed to shun corruption – Godfred Bokpin

An Economist with the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), Professor Godfred Bokpin, has stated that more integrity and honesty is needed in society to shun corruption to enable the country to envision not only for self-rule but total liberation of the country which has not happened.

“In terms of economic liberation or independence we have failed, and there are indicators beyond one’s political ideology you can look at and say our economy is much dependent on the West so we failed to achieve economic independence our forbearers gained self-rule from its colonial master 65 years ago,” he bemoaned.

According to him, though the 1966, 1972, 1979, and 1981 coups had impacted negatively on efforts in achieving economic independence, not much had been done by successive governments to totally wean the country off the West.

“If you look at the number of times the cedi has depreciated as a result of economic mismanagement, corruption, ballooned public debt, slam in commodity prices reflecting structural bottlenecks, it does not tell you we have gained economic independence and though coups derail progress, it is an indictment on our resolve to have self-rule and determine future destiny,” Prof. Bokpin bemoaned.

He called for the need to end elite capture, unnecessary tribalism, ethnicity and encouragedpeaceful coexisting, need for more honesty and people with integrity to deal with corruption aggressively with the same shame it appeared.

Prof. Peter Quartey, the Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) noted that the country had not been able to achieve anticipated economic independence associated with self-rule even though seen some improvement, particularly in communication, road infrastructure, poverty reduction and other sectors.

Unfortunately, he indicated that the nation had not been able to be economically independent and look inward to raise more domestic revenue through direct taxes but not increase taxes since existing ones should be collected and asked the government to ensure various State-Owned Enterprises were profitable and contributed to national revenue.

“We should invest not only in production but in all value chain, we can even be processing to add more value, we should be storing and processing food so prices can be stable, and less dependent on imported food,” Prof. Quartey implored. -GNA