History Society Roundtable Conference opens

Accra, Dec. 17, GNA - Dr. K.B. Asante, a retired Diplomat, on Monday said the future of Ghana depended on real economic growth based on harnessing the resources and buttressing efforts with self-confidence and discipline.

"Today we have economic growth but at the expense of our independence since the growth is possible because of the support of our benefactors.

"No proud Ghanaian could be happy as the country reflects on 50 years of wasted opportunity," he told participants of a roundtable conference to examine the 50 years of Ghana's independence so as to shape the future.

Scholars, Politicians and Civil Society Groups were attending the conference, which was the eighth in a series and was being organised by the History Society of Ghana (HSG) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) as part of activities marking Ghana's Independence Golden Jubilee Celebrations. The two-day conference was under the broad theme; "Reflections on Fifty Years of Ghana's Independence: Interrogating the past, Shaping the Future" and a sub-theme; "Good Governance: Institutional and Political Stability, Growth and Effectiveness, the Civil Service, the Military Regime, and the Civilian Governments".

Dr. Asante said, "our disappointment should not derive from what other countries in apparently comparable circumstances have done. We should be unhappy with ourselves because we could have done far better because we overcame difficult problems at independence". He, therefore, called on the participants to interrogate the last years of colonial rule and the early years of independence with that detached scholarship, which would reveal weaknesses so that they could shape the future of an industrious self-reliant, happy people. "We should therefore begin our reflections by asking ourselves what Ghana was like before independence. Most of us do not realise that the Gold Coast was not like the nation of Ghana today. It was a people untied by opposition to foreign domination.

He said that unity resulted in the protection of the aborigines rights and land beckons us to realise the emotive subject of land was not addressed by new land laws and administrative systems, which gave sustenance to corruption but by the maintenance of that justice, which needed no insincere legal niceties to enforce.

On education, Dr Asante said the country was not able to design and establish an educational system agreeable to all and called for a sober reflection, assessment of the past and determination of future needs "so that we may evolve an educational system suitable for the present and the future". Mr Francis K. Azumah, Peace and Governance Project Officer of the UNDP said the primary responsibility for achieving growth and equitable development lies with governments - past, present and future and the rest of the development partners. That responsibility, he said, included state of governance, macro and micro economic policies, public finance stability, sound financial systems, and other basic elements of the country's economic environment. He urged the participants to come out with a communiqu=E9 at the end of their deliberations to support government's efforts at improving some policy process in the country. Professor Irene K. Odotei, President of HSG, said as historians they believed that a life not examined was not worth living hence the conference to critically examine the past so as to apply the lessons to the present and the future. "Without knowing where we have been we cannot understand why we are where we are; and without understanding why we are where we are, we cannot properly determine where we ought to go," she added. 17 Dec. 07