An Associate Professor of Economics at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Kenneth Ofori-Boateng, says Ghana does not need agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when the country has a chunk of experts to give similar economic policy advice and technical assistance to stabilise the economy.
He emphasised that the country had a wealth of financial and economic experts, as well as institutions like GIMPA, capable of providing solid financial plans to revitalise the economy, including measures to stabilise the Cedi and improve revenue mobilisation, productivity, job creation and economic well-being of Ghanaians.
In an interview with The Ghanaian Times last Friday in Accra, Professor Ofori-Boateng, who is also an acting Director of the GIMPA Training and Consulting(GTC), said he was saddened that academicians were not being utilised enough in transforming the Ghanaian economy despite their several research studies, which had been ignored by several governments and not been implemented.
“You need, at least for one particular research, like $1,500 to be able to do that. And sometimes all the data you have to buy, especially if you need quality data. The recent work I did on the cost of doing business in Africa, the kind of data you need, sometimes you even need to compensate the workers who feed you with such information.
So the government should make good use of our universities since we have all the brains that could help the government prosper. It’s wrong when people say they are not seeing the impact of professors in building our economy,” he said.
He highlighted that institutions like GIMPA were equipped with academic professionals who can offer valuable economic guidance, which includes insights into various sectors, such as transport, agriculture, finance, and economic policy development, to revamp the public sector economy.
“Sincerely, GIMPA was established to be able to serve as a consultant to the government in terms of training and consultancies, but due to the lack of commitment to governments in using the academic professionals of the institutions, we have diverted our cause in pursuing academic programmes.
So it seems like we are not an institution that was supposed to be offering and pursuing tertiary programmes, but because we were not getting that support anymore, we need to come like all other universities now, in terms of the quantum of research, there are several things we have also done for the government over the years. Recently, labour rationalisations were something that we did for the railway authority,” Professor Ofori-Boateng said.
He said, for instance, the GTC offered invaluable one-stop training and consultancy for countries, but not limited to Lesotho and Somalia, in transforming their public actors with sponsorship from the European Union, as well as working with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on several projects.
“Somaliland is also a country with which we have finished working with them. We have transformed their public service.
Other countries such as Liberia Electric Corporation just like what we call ECG came for a two-week training. They were here for risk-based auditing, sponsored by the World Bank.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
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