Government urged to prioritise investment in key sectors of economy

The government has been urged to prioritise invest­ments in key sec­tors of the econ­omy, particularly health, education, and agriculture to ensure its transformation.

This, according to Kodzo Yaotse, Policy Lead, Petroleum and Conventional Energy, Af­rican Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), was critical in ensuring that those sectors do not become overly reliant on petroleum reve­nue for growth.

Currently, he said, ACEP had observed that the government had failed to release budgetary al­locations to those sectors within the past years due to the notion that those sectors were being supported by revenue from the extractive sector.

Speaking to the Ghanaian Times on the sidelines of an engage­ment with students of the Wis­consin International University College, Ghana (WIUC-Ghana) in Accra yesterday, he noted, that, rather than revenue from the extractive sector being the primary source of funding for those key sectors, it was intended to compliment other sources of funding.

The purpose of the engage­ment was to enhance students’ awareness on resources revenue management in Ghana and em­power them to actively monitor government’s utilisation of natu­ral resource revenue.

It was on the theme, “Strength­ening accountability for good resource governance through active citizenship.”

“The observation we have no­ticed in the data is that, as more resource revenues are allocated to a particular sector then the traditional government revenue that is originally supposed to go there keeps reducing,” Mr Yaotse stated.

Such a trend, he said, would have a negative impact on gov­ernment’s economic recovery programme as the key metrics used to measure progress in the various sectors, such as the health, educational and agricul­tural sector would be lacked.

Mr Yaotse underscored the need for government to “have control over the country’s debt profile and free up more space to be able to carry out other devel­opmental projects to help resolve current challenges.”

He further indicated that it was imperative that Ghanaians track and monitor projects funded by the government with revenue from the extractive sector, saying that “debt declaration alone did not ensure accountability.”

Mr Yaotse entreated the students to develop interest in national policies and engage in the governance of the coun­try’s resourc­es through research, advocacy, proj­ect tracking, monitoring and reporting, and partnerships.

The President of WIUC-Ghana, Professor Obeng Mireku, said the theme for the engagement under­scored the need for a collective action and shared responsibility in managing the country’s natural resources sustainably.

He said, effective resource gov­ernance which ensured equitable distribution of wealth, safeguards the environment and promotes socio-economic stability, was indispensable to the country’s development trajectory, particu­larly, in the petroleum and oil and gas sector.

Dr Bright Mawudor, Dean, School of Business, WIUC-Gha­na, called on the government to focus on the people, process­es, performance, purpose, and planning in the management of the resources to maximise its benefits.