Prof. Ayittey Cautions JAK

TO PROVE corporate Ghana as a credible country that can effectively manage its resources when given the needed assistance in the mind and eyes of the United States and other foreign donors, Professor George Ayittey, a distinguished Economist and President of Free Africa Foundation has cautioned President Kufuor to be wary of the management and utilization of the US$547million grant given the country.

If possible, he has suggested the setting up of a totally independent but competent management board, void of any government intervention and manipulation to effectively manage and disburse the money as expected.

"Our transparency should be completely upheld as well as accountability," he warned.

In order to sustain the elements of accountability, confidence, and transparency in the disbursement process, he stressed the need for the Millennium Development office publicize applications for projects, indicating who gets what and what its being used for.

After giving out those monies to agencies that apply for such funds, he emphasized that there should be a follow up in terms of implementation.

This, he said would enable the Millennium office to access whether the various sums applied for are used for the approved intended purpose.

"We can't afford to squander these resources, because we had a similar experience during the NDC regime when the world bank declared Ghana to be an economic success story and pumped more than US$4billion in loans to the Rawlings regime, now we are asking what happened to that money" Professor Ayittey casted him memory back.

For this reason, he says Ghanaians do not want to be disgraced again.

"The Rawlings regime was borrowing recklessly and mismanaging the loans, must we repeat this? No" he said.

Since the money was given to Ghana as a reward for showing evidence of its willingness to develop and strengthen certain key institutions with bearing on the lives of the people, the learned fellow indicated that we must put it to good use.

Should this happen, he believes "it would be a disgrace to all of us, so that is a mistake we should avoid".

To him, this has the tendency of erasing any doubts on the conscience of the United States and other equally concerned foreign donors who may be monitoring how would manage this grant extended to us a warm shake.

Though he strongly objects to the African continents begging exploits, but lauded the initiative the of President Kufuor and his NPP government for being able to access the facility, which he indicated is a sign of the governments track record of good governance.

He however does not take delight in Ghana always going to beg since in his personal opinion "it is something that deprecates our pride and dignity as Ghanaians".

As Ghanaians abroad contribute about US$3billion into the country annually, he indicated that left to him alone we as country should rather focus on our nationals to encourage them to pump more money into the system".

This he said was due to the fact that they do so without any strings attached, because they are doing it for the love of the country.

Professor Ayittey mentioned that these are exactly what the Koreans, Singaporeans and the Indians did, "looking more to their national's abroad than go begging donor countries for money".

Asked whether the MCA grant has the tendency of reducing the levels of poverty in the country thus translating into the lives of the over 18million Ghanaians, the learned Economist who has extensive knowledge into African economies said it depends on how we use the money in terms of management, disbursement and monitoring disbursement.

"If you take the money and invest it in the modern sector of the economy, it is not going to make a dent on poverty reduction because the vast majority of the Ghanaian people live in the informal and the rural sector, so that is where you have to make an impact" he suggested, saying "and that is where the Millennium Challenge Account is supposed to be directed".

He called on the media to start asking some penetrating questions to ensure accountability, asking Journalists not to feel intimidate in demanding answers on such pertinent issues.