Ghanaians Asked To Adopt Development Attitude

Accra, Dec 2, GNA 96 Mr Mats Karlsson, World Bank Country Director, on Friday appealed to Ghanaian to assume an attitude that is oriented towards speeding up the development process of the country. He said the opportunity for a faster development was here but there was the need to exhibit an attitude conducive to greater economic development and questioned why in spite of all the economic variables the country was not moving faster.

Mr Karlsson in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said: "All the elements for economic growth are here in the country - financing, political dialogue, the knowledge" why can't we make them gel even more?"

The WB Country Director noted as a Ghanaian problem, "doing what we say we are going to do", adding that the issue was also about "moving on quickly with what we know is the best for us".

On the current energy crisis, Mr Karlsson said, the low rains were only a trigger of the energy crisis, whereas the actual reason was sluggishness to energy reforms that had long been envisioned. "But this is solvable, so let's solve it," he said.

Mr Karlsson said to attain the target of a middle-income status, speed was part of the solution and the country would not achieve much with the slow implementation of policies, projects and programmes. He said people in leadership positions, particularly at the grassroots, should not be afraid to make mistakes, which always resulted in them always waiting for decisions from the top.

He said people at the grassroots must initiate moves and be prepared to learn from their mistakes, "local leadership should be paramount".

District Chief Executives, opinion leaders and area council leaders should have attitudinal change that would not accept slow performance," he stated.

On the performance of the economy, Mr Karlsson agreed with the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mr Paul Acquah that the economy in 2006 had performed well and was also ahead of most of its peers. Mr Karlsson said there were tall and challenging benchmarks that the country could set for itself.

He acknowledged that the year recorded some results that were improvement over previous years of consistent stability.

These included downward trends in inflation and interest rates; higher growth rate; higher cocoa production and non-traditional exports; as well as improvement in the basic school enrolment and gender parity. In the 2004/2005 academic calendar, enrolment at the primary level was 3.28 million with a total gross enrolment ratio (GER) of 92.1 per cent. The Gender Parity Index was 0.95. At the junior secondary level, enrolment was 1.12 million with a total GER of 74.7 per cent. Gender Parity Index was 0.94.

Mr Karlsson was, however, not impressed with achievements in health and outlined three areas, nutrition, sanitation and early childhood development as key areas to tackle.

"Nutrition levels are very low in a country that can grow virtually everything and this is an attitudinal issue rather than one of income," he observed.

He deplored a situation where people littered virtually wherever they walked and called for a major attitudinal change at all levels to deal with the problem of filth.

He said district assemblies, for example, could not pretend they could not find 50 million cedis to construct public places of convenience, as well as provide lavatories and hand-washing facilities for schools in their localities.

Although he did not think local assemblies should rely on the Central Government and donor partners for such projects, he said the donor community had completed their framework for such a support and was only waiting for implementation.

He said $62 million had been earmarked for sanitation under the Second Urban Sanitation Project for the provision of drainage, and liquid and solid waste management by the five largest metropolitan and municipal assemblies in Ghana but the project had encountered delays. A total of $10.8 million meant for a sanitary landfill and a liquid waste treatment facility has not been utilised because there is no land to accommodate these facilities.

Mr Karlsson commended efforts by the Ghana@50 Secretariat to make sanitation a key part of the celebrations. He encouraged all Ghanaians to take advantage of it to rid the country of filth during the 50th anniversary and beyond.

He also commended religious bodies, who, with the support of the World Bank Ghana Office had established a best practice initiative to use the pulpit to preach to the minds and souls of all to change from the ungodly attitude of littering the environment.

Mr Karlsson said he had learnt a new phrase in Ghana which is "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". He encouraged all to use the Christmas period not only to do soul-searching but make concrete efforts to change their attitudes and get rid of filth forever.

On early childhood development, he said it should be given serious consideration if the country was to see quality future leaders in about 25 years.

For the long term, Mr Karlsson proposed two policies on natural resource management; forestry and fisheries, both of which were being depleted.

He also recommended that an urban policy should be enacted to engender the right responses to deal with the rate of urbanisation in Ghana.

"The rate at which urbanisation is occurring in the country required clear-cut policies and strong leadership to contain it, else the situation could get out of hand in 20 years," stressed Mr Karlsson. According to the 2000 population and housing census, Accra's population is growing at almost four per cent per annum and higher than the national average of 2.6 per cent, and Kumasi's population is growing at 5.6 per cent.

This means Accra's population will double in 16 years, while Kumasi's will double in 12 years. Therefore, if these two largest cities do not plan in advance, there will be a catastrophe by the end of the next decade.

Mr Karlsson also advised the country to maintain its grips on the macroeconomic achievements, since it had profited from it. "Greater ambition can get us there.=94