A lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Professor Godfred Bokpin, has bemoaned the neglect of the agricultural sector which used to be the bedrock of the nation’s economy.
He explains that the service sector is being given prominence over the agricultural sector.
This he argues spells doom for the country as most of the activities on such trade lines are largely dictated by imports.
“Ghana, from independence, was known for agriculture, but today Ghana is not known for agriculture. Ghana is known for service, but the question is, is Ghana really a service-based economy?” he quizzed.
“The answer is no. Typically, if you look at the economic transformation when a country begins with agriculture and suddenly service is leading, it tells you that that economy is matured, so it has gone through that process, but in the case of Ghana we started off agriculture being the leading contributor to the GDP, and then we skipped industry, that is what the data is telling us, and then we jumped straight to service,” he noted.
“That service sector is actually not quality service; it is the sector that is driven by retail and wholesale, largely import. Once your service sector is leading particularly in the area of retail and wholesale, once your industry isn’t doing well then it means the bulk of what is happening is going to be important, typically once you import, you are important to unemployment,” he intimated.
Professor Godfred Bokpin made the remarks while speaking at the 3Business Economic Sustainability Summit held in Accra.
