Gov’t squeezes CSIR

The Center for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has up to three months to develop a strategy to wean itself from government subvention.

This was contained in a government directive to the institute.

The CSIR receives annual subvention from government to support its operations but managers of the economy this year asked the institute to come up with a strategy to completely wean itself from government subvention within the next three years.

Dr Abdullai B. Salifu, Director General of the CSIR, who disclosed this in an interview with CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE on the sidelines of the launch of the 6th African Agriculture Science Week in Accra, described the directive as completely “suicidal.”

“A research institution cannot be weaned off the public purse. Even in advanced countries they have research funded from public purse. With greatest respect this is suicidal.”

He explained that in 1992, the CSIR Act was revised to cover the issue of commercialization of the operations of the institute.

“We therefore established commercial departments for this purpose but we did not have the requisite experts. We had scientists instead of qualified marketers in the department,” he said.

Although Dr Salifu was of the view that the new directive from government would not be “possible,” he noted that the institute intends to “reply the letter all the same.”

On the other hand, the CSIR Director General stated that positioning the institute to generate resources was not a bad idea but called for the appropriate support from government.

He was of the opinion that establishing a dedicated fund purposely for research would have been the best way forward.

Dr Salifu said a Science and Technology Improvement Fund with a capital of GH¢2 million has been set up while there is an existing Science and Technology Research endowment fund set up by the Kufour government which voted an amount of GH¢1.5 million into it.

“We need the appropriate funding mechanism to finance research and agriculture in Ghana. I think that is the best way forward,” he added.