Dr. Eric Yeboah, Secretary to the Ghana Beyond Aid Committee has stated that the Government was implementing policy initiatives towards revamping and strengthening the private sector to complement the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.
He said the government believed in the private sector and had identified some local entrepreneurs to support and expand their production to create more job opportunities to increase the exportation of local goods.
“The government sees the private sector as an indispensable partner who has so much to unleash to drive up our development for the realisation of the Ghana Beyond Aid vision,” he said.
Dr. Yeboah speaking at the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office’s Industrial News Hub Boardroom Dialogue platform noted that the move was, to increase the number of taxpayers, intensify investment, enhance Corporate Social Responsibilities leading to a reduction of pressure on the government.
“Support for the private sector would, in the long run, work to the benefit of the country as it would reduce importation of goods which we have a strategic advantage,” he added.
“There was a very sad story in 2016, where Ghana earned 2.3 billion dollars from the sale of cocoa, the same year, we imported rice, cooking oil, fruit, fruit juice, chicken, worth 2.3 billion dollars what that means is that all the cash we earned from the sale of cocoa was used to buy food,” Dr. Yeboah added.
On the rationale for the Ghana Beyond Aid, Dr. Yeboah said: “We recognize that the economic transformation and growth of our economy that will make us prosperous and move us beyond aid will have to be financed primarily by domestic resources and also by foreign private investment.
“But aid still has an important and welcome role to play. Ghana Beyond
Aid has two important implications for aid and our relations with development partners.
“First, we will pursue a clear strategy for economic transformation and we will insist that aid be firmly aligned to it. Secondly, there are certain basic services, such as basic education, health, sanitation, and water resources, that after 62 years as an independent nation, we need to cater for ourselves without stretching out our hands to donors”.
Dr. Yeboah noted that “this is important for our self-respect as a nation, further, dependence on donors for such basics has tended to have the unfortunate effects of absorbing an inordinate amount of the time of our officials and distorting our national socio-economic priorities”.
He explained that the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda included a target to steadily increase Ghana’s contribution to basic public services while encouraging donors to re-orient their programmes to support economic transformation.
Mr. Francis Ameyibor, GNA Tema Regional Manager explained that the Industrial News Hub Boardroom Dialogue platform forms part of a broader objective of the Agency towards revamping its operations.
Mr Ameyibor said GNA was poised to be the source of news on Ghana’s investment and industrialization drive, economic and tourism potential through story exchanges with its international partners, and Tema serving as a major industrial city, “GNA Tema Industrial News Hub Boardroom Dialogue Platform,” is critical as we move forward.