The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy, Dr Kwabena Donkor, has argued that if Ghana is to take industrialisation seriously, then the issue of power and tariffs must be re-examined.
In his view, the days of glorifying consumption at the expense of production must be consigned to the dustbin of history if the country is to experience an accelerated and sustainable development growth.
Sharing further insights in a lecture he delivered in Accra last Thursday, Dr Donkor pointed out that in most jurisdictions, power for industry was priced lower than domestic consumption, and for strategic industries, it was even further lowered.
He had earlier spoken on the topic: ?Thinking the unthinkable: An end to orthodoxy in natural resource management,? at an intellectual forum organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).
According to Dr Donkor, who is also the MP for Pru East Constituency, it was time Ghana dedicated Akosombo power to its strategic industries such as VALCO and the iron and steel sectors, saying in most jurisdictions, the cheapest source of generation was dedicated to the critical industries.
Over 50 years down the line, Dr Donkor intimated that ?there is no evidence to show that Ghana, as a nation, has identified her national interest,? and that the nation was still embroiled and comfortable with what ?we inherited as a colonial legacy.?
?I am certain if we had identified our national interest, we would do things differently. We need to understand the times and do what we need to do to benefit the nation as a whole,? he stated.
He said the development of the oil and gas industry must not be allowed to exacerbate the raw material export structure of the economy.
Value addition must be the cardinal principle of the industry, Dr Donkor pointed out, saying, ?we should be moving towards refining our crude oil domestically in order to add value and, more importantly, consciously establish an industry with the appropriate forward and backward linkages to the rest of the economy.?
Our aim, he said, must be to establish an internally consistent economy that addresses the national interest of Ghana and which must include making major inroads in exporting goods and services to the immediate landlocked neighbourhood.
He lamented that Ghana over the years had ?religiously performed its role to maximise the gains of extraction and other forms of primary production to meet the needs of the metropolitan political arrangement with distinction.
He mentioned cocoa, gold, timber, other minerals and crude oil accounting for 93.6 per cent of exports in 1990, 92.3 in 1995, 83.8 in 2000, 77.7 in 2005, 79.3 in 2010 and 86.5 in 2012 to buttress his point.
Source: Daily Graphic
