The elite, bad intentioned foreigners killing Ghana - Kwesi Pratt

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has expressed his unhappiness about courses taught and theories studied in the nation’s universities indicating despite an increase in their numbers they offer little by way of relevant training.

He accused the nation’s centres of higher learning of rather deepening the dependence on foreign ideologies and the promotion of foreign markets.

The veteran journalist noted that the courses being offered by most of the universities do not help in national development as they fail to equip students to address challenges of the country once they complete their courses.

Speaking on Rainbow Radio’s FRONTLINE programme, Mr. Pratt noted that, a good number of the recorded corruption cases in the country had the educated or elite involved which raised serious questions as the elite or educated are expected to help advance the course of the nation.

On the future prospects of the economy, Kwesi Pratt had reservations about policies pursued by various governments in the recent past.

These policies he said have put the economy in the hands of foreigners be it in the mining, airline or the oil sector wondering how the state could develop, if such vital assets were in the hands of non-Ghanaians.

He questioned why governments have not scrapped the Foreign Exchange Retention Agreement which allows foreign mining companies to keep 98% of their export revenue outside the shores of the country adding with such agreement in place it was not surprising that after years of foreign entities mining in the country, the sector had failed to transform cities, the economy or the state.

He also questioned the rationale for state officials agreeing to only 13% of the oil revenue whiles the rest is flown overseas by the foreign oil companies. He said acceptance of such agreements do not happen anywhere else in the world as it undermines the economic sovereignty of the state.

Mr. Pratt explained that with foreigners dominating and possessing huge percentages in key assets, it is not surprising that Ghana has no choice than to go to the World Bank and other European institutions for loans with huge interest which in fact do little to alleviate the plight of the citizenry.