Erratic power supply “disincentive to business” – Nduom

The 2012 Presidential candidate of the Progressive People’s Party, (PPP) Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has intimated that the practical solution to Ghana’s worsening economic situation is to tackle some basic fundamental elements of the economy.

With his background as a onetime Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Integration during the Kufuor era, and an astute businessman, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom pointed out that until government pays attention to some basic principles like the implementation of a proper identification system, discipline and an effective tax collection system, the economy will continue to frizzle out.

According to him, the investment climate in Ghana does not make Ghanaian investors competitive with their foreign counterparts. He cited the power crisis as a disincentive to doing business in Ghana. “The business environment in Ghana makes things expensive,” Dr. Nduom stressed.

He describes as unfortunate, a situation where he was nearly overtaken by his foreign competitors for spending three weeks to produce food container samples for potential buyers in the Middle East and Europe as a result of frequent power cuts.

Asked if the Atuabo gas infrastructure will offer solutions to the power crisis confronting the country currently, the onetime Minister of Energy indicated that the Atuabo gas plant defeats its purpose if the distribution of power is not done properly.

“If the distribution infrastructure remains 1950 then what has Ghana accomplished? There will still be losses if the distribution system to collect revenue is not good enough,” he added.

He described the pre-paid meter system as backward. He revealed that Ghana’s adoption of the pre-paid meter system is primarily due to the lack of effective system to collect revenue.

He said these in an interview on BTA’s “On the Burner” programme when he was quizzed by host of the show, X Shalom Yaw Gonu to give his impression about Ghana’s supposedly improved performance in the global competitiveness survey by ranking 111th as compared to 114th last year.

He stated that Ghana should not applaud itself for placing 111th out of 144 countries. He said placing 111th does not make Ghana a strong competitor; neither does ranking 11th out of 34 African countries per the survey makes Ghana any better.

In his words, “If you are a champion in a bad neighborhood called West Africa or Africa, what then have you achieved? In this case Ghana wasn’t even number 1 in the African rankings.”

He cautioned government to come clean on the current state of the economy to enable investors plan appropriately and also do the necessary adjustments.