Gov’t urged to support the private sector

Mr Jonathan Ahorsu, Group Chairman of Jonasu Group of Companies, has appealed to the Government to pay more attention to the private sector to help improve the economy.

He said the private sector held some of the keys to transforming the economy if the state took interest in supporting it to stand on its feet without resorting to importations, which had adverse effects on the domestic economy.

Mr Ahorsu told the GNA in an interview in Tamale on Wednesday that governments, over the years, had strived in vain to improve the country’s economy because the private sector had always been neglected.

He said the country abounded in rich natural resources but leadership had not been creative enough to help Ghanaians to make judicious use of the resources to solve poverty and unemployment, which continued to bring untold hardships to the citizenry.

The industrialised countries are where they are today because leadership recognised and paid much attention on the private sector and urged government to take advantage of the potentials of the north to build the economy.

He said it was also important for Ghanaians, especially parents, to learn to invest for their future and that of their children saying, “learning to save and invest is the first step in fighting poverty, disease and malnutrition”.

Mr Ahorsu said it was impossible for government to do everything for the citizenry saying, “the role of the government is the provision of infrastructure and other social services. It is the duty of government to create jobs for the youth but it is undeniable fact that some of the youths are unemployable”.

He said the best way that the Government would get the youth involved in nation building was to identify and support the creative ones to develop their own enterprises to make it possible to engage other youths.

“The government needs to turn and support the private sector to grow so that more jobs would be created to solve the youth unemployment in the country,” he said.

Mr Jonathan Ahorsu owns a number of businesses in the country which included Jonasu Academy in Accra, Jonasu Logistics as well as a number of petrol filling stations and employed some 162 people.