Opinions of Thursday, 24 August 2017

Columnist: Evans Badu -Boampong

Reduction in natality rate is unfounded in the right direction

Family size planning is a good idea but that will not have any real impact with regards to the quality of life.

A poor planner who has rehearsed the names of Isaac Newton and Aristotle to mention a few and has been judged as educated would see growing population as a worry. An innovative entrepreneur would see it as growing market and hence need for business expansion. Bangladesh with a population of 163 million as at 2016 has a GDP growth rate of 7.1%, GDP per capital income of $1,358.78 in 2016. Ghana with a population of 28.21 million (2016 population and housing census) has a growth rate of 6.6% and per capita income of $1,340.40 (2016)

We should be interested in how to getting rid of the significant number of children of primary school age not enrolled and bridging the significant enrolment gab between the poor and the rich.

By now we should be thinking of how to improve the rapid declining forest cover especially the food crop sub-sector which continues to rely on rain-fed agriculture and the adopted limited modern agriculture techniques. The major cause of the low quality life in most parts of the country is the misuse of our God-given resources by state officials. Nature has blessed us with uncountable and enviable resources which harnessed wisely could have raised Ghana to be the beacon of the continent and the world and use it to finance effective education, healthcare, development and redistribution.

Corrupt politicians and some civil servants have siphoned the milk of the land without being accounted for. The public debt since independence is about GH¢127 billion. Out of this as much as GH¢112 billion are in the hands and pocket of some corrupt officials.