Story by: Konadu Benedicta
Governance Expert and Director General of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), Dr. Eric Oduro Osae has asserted that Ghana can only be developed by Ghanaians and not the International Monetary fund (IMF), and foreigners who do not know much about the country.
According to him, IMF and foreign investors and can only support Ghana and not save it from the economic crisis.
“It’s about time Ghanaians take their own destiny into their own hands, we will be able to make it. These historical facts that my colleague has given to us should set all of us thinking. We have only one country and we can develop it only by Ghanaians, all others can come and support us. Do they know Ghana better than us, do they understand our system better than us? That notwithstanding, it is not all lost, we will be able to bounce back strongly but I think that we should now realise that our destiny is in our own hands,” he stated on GTV Breakfast Show.
He added that Ghana should mobilise taxes to generate money to develop the country.
“The people who come in are called development partners. They are not donors, the money they bring to us are taxpayers money. Why can’t we mobilise taxes here to develop our country?” he asked.
The Governance Expert said it is sad for Ghana to invite IMF to the country on Republic Day.
“So I’m saddened that, on the fact that on first July, we went to IMF and I am also hopeful that once we realise that these things will not carry us anywhere. Errr Ghana it is, it is sad today to hear that, the IMF is coming and what are they coming to do?” he stressed.
He, however, mentioned that it is about time Ghana changed its economic structure.
“You keep on exporting raw materials without adding value to it, the terms of trade will work against you. If you keep up operating an import-led economy, what do you expect? Everything here, everything of about 80% of the things we use is imported. If you have oil and you don’t have a refinery, you would have the crude oil. You would export the crude oil and use the money to go and buy refined oil when you have Tema Oil Refinery sitting there, who brought us here? I think it is about time we call a spade a spade. Let us do a quick review of our economic structure, of everything that we do in this country. It is not taking us anywhere,” he added.
