The Managing Director (MD) of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Ato Afful, has stressed the need for the government to create more technology-enabled opportunities in industries such as agribusiness and tourism to ensure a quick economic turnaround.

He emphasised that technology could create new opportunities and branches in the human path, adding that only larger ideas and mindsets could dictate which path should be taken.

At the quarterly Graphic Business/Stanbic Bank Breakfast Meeting in Accra yesterday, Mr Afful also suggested that there should be initiatives that would indirectly transfer the responsibility of creating opportunities from the state to individuals with the requisite and deliberate state policies.

Breakfast Meeting

The meeting, the second for this year, was held on the theme:

“The Current Economic Situation and You:

What to Expect, how to Cope and How to Thrive.”  

It brought together policymakers, people in academia and the private sector to deliberate on pressing economic and social issues affecting society and individuals, especially in the aftermath of Ghana securing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal. 
 

Attitudinal change

Mr Afful also stressed the need for an attitudinal change in work ethics and the adoption of more prudent ways of managing resources.

“I do not doubt that we know what to do, so, for me, the conversation should be from the point of view where we need to change our behaviour to work, how we manage our resources and our ways of doing things; our values and attitudes that we have as a people.

“When we have done that, I believe we will be in a better place to enable us to progress into the future,” he said.

The GCGL MD also held the conviction that ideas were what influenced culture and not just technology on its own.

For that reason, he said there was a need to promote the spread and integration of ideas, values, norms, behaviour and ways of life. 

Broaden tax bracket

Also, Mr Afful emphasised the need for the country to open up its economy with ideas and solutions and identify those who were outside the tax bracket and bring them into the taxation ecosystem to ensure the economy was meaningful resourced.

“We complain that very few people carry the tax burden in this country, but if we open up this economy with ideas and other solutions, I believe that it will enable us to identify the rest of the people who are out of the bracket,” the GCGL MD said.

 The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), Mark Badu-Aboagye, noted that the economy had gone through a turbulent period since 2020.

After struggling domestically to turn the fortunes of the economy without success, he recalled that the country had no other option but to turn to IMF for a bailout.

Although the IMF support was expected to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability while laying the foundation for higher and more inclusive growth, Mr Badu-Aboagye said it also came with conditionalities that might bring initial hardship to the citizens.

Touching on the current economic situation, the GNCCI CEO said inflation as of the end of May this year, stood at 42.2 per cent, while the policy rate was at an all-time high of 29.5 per cent, with the lending rate hovering around 35 to 40 per cent.

He said those macroeconomic indicators were having far-reaching negative effects on all sectors and every economic actor in Ghana.

”Businesses are suffering, citizens are suffering and politicians, both in government and in opposition, are also suffering.

Indeed, everyone is feeling the negative impacts of these economic circumstances.

This poses a significant challenge to economic stability, growth, and the well-being of individuals and businesses,” he stated.

Mr Badu-Agyeman, however, said by collectively examining the current happenings and understanding their implications, the country could forge ahead on a path that ensured resilience, growth and success.

SOURCE: GraphicOnline