Story: Boahene Asamoah
Individuals and communities should be careful not to stampede the government into sharing the resources which will accrue from the oil find, Mr Anthony Oteng-Gyasi, the President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), has cautioned.
He said concerns being raised in the media in connection with the oil find were all on how to share the revenue that would accrue from the oil find and cautioned that “we must be very careful”.
Speaking at the launch of a media advocacy project on “Using the Media to Strengthen Business Advocacy” in Accra yesterday, Mr Oteng-Gyasi said, “Concerns about the oil find should be on the opportunities for business and employment generation” that would benefit the country and help in the development of the economy.
The 12-month business advocacy project is an initiative of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and supported by the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund and comes at the heels of the first project in 2006. It is being facilitated by KAB Governance Consult.
Mr Oteng-Gyasi, who touched on many challenges facing the nation, urged the media to give the same prominence they gave to political stories to business and economic issues as the country strove to achieve a middle-income status.
“I am calling for a cultural change in our attitude to business and requesting you, as media professionals, to use your advocacy in bringing about this change by sustained, well structured, multi-media efforts on behalf of business,” the AGI President stated.
He said the media had spearheaded the call for political independence and democratic rule in the 50-year history of the country but expressed regret that the same could not be said of the economic independence of the country since gaining political freedom.
“It is the role of the media to bring this awareness to our people. The success of our media in making concepts of democratic governance and human rights appreciated by large portions of our society can and should be replicated in economic and business advocacy,” Mr Oteng-Gyasi said.
On poverty, he indicated that “a disturbing phenomenon is the constant reminder that we are a poor nation. This is worsened by what is often offered as a logical result of our poverty”.
He stated that the argument often implied that we must, therefore, be given goods and services at low prices or preferably for free.
“What we fail to add is the need for each person to try to better himself,” adding that “the role of a leader should be to ensure conditions that allow an individual who makes the effort to do well”.
The Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development (PSD) and President’s Special Initiatives (PSIs), Mr Joe Baidoe-Ansah, said the ministry was implementing a strategy on micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) designed to promote SMEs as a response to the dominance of the sector and the need to support their growth.
“In addition, the ministry has a well functioning SME division which is pursuing programmes to streamline government’s support to SMEs,” the minister added.
Mr Baidoe-Ansah said the ministry had set a public-private dialogue unit within the ministry to collate the concerns of trade associations and practitioners and present the concerns for policy considerations by the government.
The Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Flemming Bjork Pedersen, in his statement, said Denmark had allocated GH¢37 million to support a Business Sector Support Programme to pursue a pro-poor development strategy in line with the country’s poverty reduction strategy.
He said the programme had the objective of creating equitable growth in production and employment achieved through the development of a competitive and vibrant private sector.
The President of the GJA, Mr Ransford Tetteh, stated that the project would, among other things, make a conscious effort to develop the capacity of a core of journalists in business advocacy and create a multi-media platform to discuss the concerns of business.
“It will also sensitise the leadership of business groups and entrepreneurs to the importance of advocacy in business and promote dialogue between policy makers and business operatives with the view to addressing the concerns of business,” he stated.
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