Okyenhene Mad At Bad Leadership

THE OKYENHENE, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, has stated that the recent floods that hit the nation�s capital and parts of the country cannot be described as a natural disaster but a man-made disaster engendered by visionless and insensitive public and government officials. The Okyenhene said that centrality of governance and over concentration of public and socio-economic activities in the nation�s capital had resulted in the influx of people into the capital for businesses and economic survival, with their attendant socio-economic problems. He said for instance that if the ministries were re-located and spread out in the regional capitals, it would help decongest the capital and also help the economic fortunes of the other regions, while helping the acceleration of the total development of the country. �We started with Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore as developing countries when we gained independence in 1957. But the three countries who described themselves as Asian Tigers, boosted by effective and good leadership, have been able to transform their countries tremendously and are counted as very formidable countries,� he said, adding that while Malaysia and South Korea Singapore were seriously investing in quality education and sponsoring experts to the US for knowledge acquisition to help transform their economy, Ghana was embroiled in coups and counter-coups. �Our problem has been ineffective and bad leadership because Ghana has all the resources to even become a developed country,� he said. �If we have vision there is no way we will cite the Ministry of Lands and Forestry in Accra,� he noted, adding that there was the need for proper decentralization of governance to help develop the other regional capitals to be like Accra. According to him, everybody wanted to be in Accra because that was where all the �opportunities� were, adding that investors would not like to risk investing in other regions of the country. The Okyenhene was speaking at the first Ghana CEO Business Summit organized by BlackGold, a publishing and capacity building company in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The summit was held at Koforidua in the Eastern region on Friday for various CEOs of prominent businesses as well as economic players in the country. The summit was attended by renowned chief executive officers in the country. Speakers included former president John Agyeum Kufuor, Dr Joyce Aryee, former CEO of Chamber of Mines, Prof Kenneth Attafuah, Kofi Amoabeng, CEO of Unibank and others. Osagyefuo stressed the importance for CEOs in the country to come together to help influence the direction of governance that would be geared towards improving the lives of Ghanaians. Osagyefo said CEOs must make a strong case for an economic direction of the country that would bring prosperity to all citizens of the country. He also pointed out the need for government to create an enabling environment for local businesses to grow, and also give financial support to local business. He also asked government to make efforts to make education accessible to all Ghanaians since the bedrock of socio-economic development was good education.