Minister Urges Ghanaians in Diaspora to Invest in the Economy

The Minister for Economic Planning and Regional Integration Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom has appealed to Ghanaians in the Diaspora to come home and invest for speedy economic development and growth of the nation.

He was speaking at the launch of the Social Investment Fund (SIF) at the Subin-Sub-Metropolitan District ,Kumasi.

The fund, which is part of the Poverty Alleviation Initiative, is the sixth pilot project and a joint initiative of the government, the African Development Bank and the United Nations. It is aimed at providing assistance to the poor in the rural and urban communities.

He said the contribution by Ghanaians living abroad was vital for the sustenance of development projects and urged them to take advantage of the favourable investment climate to channel their investments into the economy.

Dr. Nduom said the government was committed to poverty reduction programmes. For that matter, he said, it had initiated programmes to identify the needs of the poor in order to improve their standard of living.

Commenting on the state of the economy, he said that prior to the Ghanaian revolution there was no domestic debt. However, it was unfortunate that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government had to be confronted with a domestic debt of about ?9 trillion, which the previous government of the National Democratic Government (NDC) had created.

Dr. Nduom said that because of the inability of the government to meet its debt obligations it opted for the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIP).

In a speech read for him, the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr. S. K. Boafo noted that in the past development projects were implemented in an uncoordinated manner, which resulted in the waste of the scarce resources of the Assembly.

He said there were cases in which funds meant for poverty alleviation programmes were misused to the disadvantage of the poor.

The Minister gave the assurance that the government would put structures in place to ensure that funds that were meant for the poor reach them.

The Executive Director of SIF, Mr. Opoku Agyemang gave an overview of how the fund would be used. He said the beneficiaries were expected to provide10% of the fund while the District Assemble provides 75%.