World Bank has a problem with Ghana's stunted growth – Senior Minister

The Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo has indicated that the World Bank now has a problem with Ghana’s stunted growth because of its inconsistency with development making it difficult for them to trust the country on economic issues and development when it comes to dealings.

According to him, this baffles the central bank as they wonder what might actually be the cause of the slow and inconsistent growth rate of the economy although there are enough resources to stabilize the economy.

“The World Bank has a problem now with Ghana, what they call the theory of reversibility. The World Bank theory now, Ghana can we rely on you. You go up to this and then you drop up to this level".

"What are the factors, it defeats any of the theory people have, your raw material hasn’t changed, many things have not changed but still your growth begins to decline,” he hinted the questions normally asked by the central bank when they meet.

He further stated that “Ghana from 2001 grew from 3.5 continuously and consistently up to about 9 percent. Every year there was an improvement on the growth without oil. Then we had oil, oil reflected in 2011, growth went up to 14 percent. Now by end of 2016, growth has dropped from 14 percent to 3.5 percent with oil”.

The Senior Minister believes the inefficient use of resources, corruption and governance amounts to this which must be critically looked at by making education a national priority as that would help improve governance thereby making the outcomes better.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo made these remarks at a roundtable discussion on Democracy and Development in Africa: Trends and Paths at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development in Accra on Tuesday, October 3.