Renowned economist Kwame Pianim is advocating major economic reforms to expedite national development.
Key among his proposals is the need for the country to lower its population growth rate from the current 2.1 percent to under 1 percent.
Mr. Pianim observed that Ghana cannot achieve any significant economic growth considering the current rate of population growth, stressing that “no country has ever developed with a population growth rate above 2 per cent.”
Mr Pianim made the call at this year’s annual leadership lecture organised by the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) on Monday, December 11, 2023.
The public lecture was themed “Re-imagining Ghana’s development trajectory for a peaceful, prosperous nation by 2057: Our 100th anniversary, through the perspective of the people.”
The lecture provided an intellectual platform for distinguished individuals to examine and discuss critical global and national issues pertinent to society while proposing solutions for Ghana’s sustainable development.
“To change our current development trajectory, we need to lower our annual rate of population growth from 2.1%,” Mr. Pianim said.
He added that “our women cannot continue to give birth to an average of six children. South Korea has been so successful in managing the population/development equation since the 1970s [that] it now faces population decline.”
Touching on corruption, Mr. Pianim suggested the need to incentivize individuals who report corruption while leveraging digital transformation to minimise human contact and effectively curb corrupt practices.
“We Ghanaians are not genetically thieves,” he said. “The problem is that there are no incentive systems to point young people to productive and socially healthy activities. And what is worse, there are no working systems for tracking, calling out, apprehending, prosecuting, and sanctioning wrongdoers in a timely manner.”
Mr Pianim said a re-imagined Ghana suggests that “we digitalized a lot of payment functions. For example, salaries, SSNIT payments, third-party payroll deductions for loans, the National Health Authority, and most earmarked funds, such as DAC payments, should be fully digitalized as a percentage of tax revenue collected.”
It also requires that “we turn the system of administration upside down. Ministries reverted to focusing on policy formulation, monitoring, and evaluation. Districts and agencies implement projects under elected DCEs.
“Annual budgets should allocate funds to implementing agencies, not ministries. By doing so, we will have 265 centres initiating and delivering development,” Mr Pianim said.
