Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, a former Governor of the Bank of Ghana has disclosed that the country needs a paradigm shift in terms of leadership.
He said the woes of Ghana are mainly leadership problems and therefore the election of a businessman as President will help.
He was speaking on how to get Ghana out of the current economic hole and avoid debt default during an interview aired on Joy News’s Upfront on Wednesday. When asked, “what kind of President does Ghana need now?’’ Dr. Duffuor answered, ‘’we have had lawyers as Presidents. Kuffuor was a lawyer, Professor Mills was a lawyer, Akufo Addo is a lawyer, Mahama is a communications expert, why don’t we try a business man?’’
Dr. Duffour also dismissed the assertion by government officials that Ghana’s current economic difficulties and alarmingly depreciating currency is due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-UKraine war. He blamed it on leadership mismanagement.
“Fifteen African countries have registered single digit inflation during this same period including Togo, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Kenya, Uganda and so on. These countries didn’t jump over Covid-19 or Russia – Ukraine war. We are doing something wrong in Ghana’’.
He called on the government of Ghana to stop spending most of its revenue, borrowings and grants on consumption expenditure and rather invest more in capital expenditure in order to generate jobs and increase government revenue.
“Ghana has over borrowed and we have revenue shortfalls. But we are spending over 70% of our revenue, grants and borrowed funds on consumption but we must invest in infrastructural development for government revenue to grow through the increased job creation. Currently, very little goes into capital expenditure’’. He added, ‘’we borrow to fill our revenue gap, we pay interest on loans with borrowed funds and now the international market has shut us off from borrowing simply because we cannot manage our debt’’.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor also attributed the pressure on the Ghana cedi to a lack of US dollars in the system as a result of excessive government borrowing as well as structural defects in our mineral and oil export arrangements to balance our import payments.
