Dr Maxwell Opoku-Afari, the first Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), has called for policies to stimulate
savings and investment in the economy, describing borrowing as an “unsustainable” way of development.
“Most of the lower-middle income countries, and in particular, our savings rate is nowhere compared with other
middle-income countries. We’re under 10 per cent, but the investment requirement is huge,” he said.
Dr Opoku-Afari noted that considering the country’s development needs, it was important to close the critical
savings and investment gap, which often made the government resort to borrowing.
“… but borrowing is not the most sustainable way of development. You have to focus on domestic revenue
12mobilisation, and to achieve that, you have to grow the savings rate,” he said.
He said this during a panel discussion on the back of launch of the 2024 World Development Report, “The middle-
income trap,” by the World Bank in Accra, on Thursday, October 11.
The Deputy Central Bank Governor noted that for the country to witness the structural economic transformation that
would be more impactful, it was important to be intentional about driving sustainable investment.
“This should focus on getting a savings rate that can lead to a higher revenue mobilisation domestically to support
instead of borrowing at a very expensive market rate, especially when that investment does not go into projects that
can pay for itself,” he stated.
The Daily Searchlight agrees largely with Dr Maxwell Opoku-Afari. The fact of the matter, which Ghana’s
leadership seems to have conveniently and for their own reasons forgotten, is that it is never going to be possible for
the nation to borrow its way to development.
What would lead to development, is for the nation to recognize its many and abundant natural talent and resources,
and marshal these amazing resources to development.
The nation would never develop until we manage to ignite the spark of imagination and the daring of the people to
set off on news adventures, in the areas of entrepreneurship.
It is only by this daring, when we are fired in the mind to set off for new shores and news adventures, in terms of
creating the industry to make ourselves self-sufficient in all manner of ways that we can develop. And not by
borrowing huge amounts of foreign funds, which end up stolen.
The path to development lies with us; but we must recognize this fact above all!
(Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of 14 th October, 2024)
