Africa’s biggest challenge has been the inability to transform the abundant natural resources into opportunities for creation of jobs and wealth, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana said.
Akufo-Addo said this while delivering a lecture on Mainstreaming Industrial Policies to Catalyze Industrial Renaissance”, at the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, 2018 Manufacturers Annual Lecture & Presidential Luncheon in commemoration of its 46th Annual General Meeting.
He said the continent boast of young, determined and highly educated people across all sectors and yet had not been able to get the right mix of policies to fully unearth and develop the entrepreneurial talents that abound in Nigeria in particular and on the continent.
He said: “This is a ban we need to fix. It can be done for it is not a rocket science to ensure a well-balanced and thought through policy -mix to mainstream industrialization in Africa.
”Our lazy approach of always rushing to the international market to sell our resources in their raw state which fetches us peanuts must stop.
”It is far better to leave our resources untapped till our future generations rise up to the challenge and conscientiously develop the best policy-mix that priorities industrialization as the most convenient cause to drive the much needed effects in our socio-economic development.”
The Ghanaian President, who was represented by Osafo Maafo, Senior Minister, said there was need to ensure that Africans had the capacity to support effective value addition to enhance its revenue positions on the international market.
“This calls for policy harmonization, coordination, and effective collaboration between the public and private sectors to drive effective and time tested industrial framework to fully utilize our natural resource to the best of international expectations.
“There is no way we can achieve this if we do not ensure that our economies are fully integrated and connected with each other and operating on the same platform with the same voice.
”Why should Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire produce 60 percent or more of world annual cocoa beans and yet earn less than 6 per cent of the global value chain activities of the cocoa industry?
”Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire with their collective production of 60 per cent of global cocoa beans earned only about $6.0 billion in 2016 but the chocolate in industry earned at the same time about $120 billion,” he stated
In his remark, Dr. Frank Jacobs, outgoing President of MAN, applauded President Buhari for sustaining quarterly meeting with the organized private sector where operational challenges are identified and ways of resolving them proffered.
