Ghana has not received the desired benefits from the mining of gold, Dr Ishmael Yamson, Chairman of Ishmael Yamson and Associates has observed.
“We have been producing cocoa for how many years? We have been producing gold for how many years? Now, in fact, gold has become a curse because it is because of gold that all the galamsey and all our water bodies are being destroyed,” the business consultant told Class91.3FM’s Benjamin Akakpo on Wednesday, May 31 at a business roundtable organised by Ishmael Yamson and Associates.
Citing an example, the former board chairman of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) said Vietnam, which used to be a war-torn country, has managed to identify key areas to boost its economy.
Vietnam, Dr Yamson said, identified tea and few other products and developed a value chain for the product.
He said Vietnam uses fish, leather and its natural resources for its benefit, adding that they “didn’t sit back like Ghana does by producing and selling things raw”.
“They moved the products through different stages and have created “a huge industry and a chain at which level value is added [to the raw products]”.
Dr Yamson has, therefore, challenged stakeholders to think entrepreneurially because that is the only way economic growth can be achieved.
The fourth edition of the annual Business Roundtable is on the theme: Making Ghana Entrepreneurial.
The programme is being held at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra and meant to explore how Ghana can become prosperous.
Speakers will use the opportunity to examine how government, policy makers, regulators, and the public sector can become entrepreneurial in their approach to the business of government and how they can, through the creation of a sustained enabling operating environment, effectively facilitate entrepreneurship by the private sector, the social sector, and other stakeholder institutions in Ghana.
It will also provide the opportunity for all the stakeholders to examine how they can become more entrepreneurial, more agile, and better able to assess risks; competitively leverage opportunities in the environment and become less dependent on political patronage.
Speakers at event include former rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei; businessman Dr Daniel Mackorley, founder and leader of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Dr Mensa Otabil; Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, Chair of Yamson and Associates Dr Ishmael Yamson, CEO of Dream Oval Derrydean Dadzie, and a host of other distinguished persons.
Source:classfmonline.com