Harness opportunities in science and technology - Dr Boakye

The Former President of the Ghana Institute of Engineers (GIE), Dr. Kwame Boakye, has stated categorically that the Ghana socio-economic growth and development would not be in good shape if the nation continues to fail in harnessing opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Innovation (STEI).

Dr. Boakye made these observations when he addressed the gathering at the 21st Graduation of Accra Institute of Technology (AIT) over the weekend in Accra.

He urged Ghanaians to embrace STEI saying it was a formidable way to enhance socio-economic growth and development.

According to him, the country can boast of policies and programmes but without systematic efforts to harness opportunities available in STEI, the nation is going nowhere in elevating its people from abject poverty, diseases and environmental degradation.

In his view, STEI had become the main forces driving the Asian Tigers to compete with world economies like the United States.

He said, Ghana and other Africa nations had not fared so well and as a result they kept depending on their so-called development partners, leaving behind the very things they can adopt to improve the lives of the people.

‘We have become a beggar nation, addicted to donation. We are unable to execute without the so-called development partners- political correct way of depriving our dependency. We can implement our national budget without their contribution. We can’t run our institutions by ourselves without their help. Even elections which lie in the core of exercising our franchise must be partially funded by these partners. This should be a big concern to us,” he lamented.

He was of the concerns that Ghana’s inability to harness opportunities in STEI was the main reason for its social predicaments such as advent poverty, disaster, lack of food sufficiency etc.

He urged policy makers to provide opportunities which would lead to meeting their daily necessities such as food, shelter, education and healthcare.

“No matter the virtues of our development, STEI are the key drivers of development because they underpin socioeconomic advancements and improvements in the health system, education and infrastructure,” he states.

To this end, he said Ghana’s problem is an engineering problem “you build hospitals and provide pharmaceutical services to treat diseases and that would definitely achieve something. However, the sustainable way of eliminating many of these diseases in Ghana is not through the provision of medicine but rather through engineering,” he said.

In order to achieve sustainable development for the country, the GIE former president urged all engineers to come together as a group to draw a road map that would improve STEI.

He further called on the government to put experts in leadership positions to help address the issue of underdevelopment in the country.