The government should go back to basics. The foundation of development of a country is its productive base. Infrastructural development could be based on the accumulation and investment of sovereign national wealth or the accumulation of debts.
Since 1965 emphasis to bring about infrastructural development has been based on loans and grants instead of building a sovereign wealth fund. Consequently the country depends mostly on taxation and loans to meet recurrent and development expenditure. We export less and import more. Now this shortcoming is impacting on the value of the dalasi against other currencies. Data has shown that the exchange rate for the euro in the last year rose by 9.2 percent to D78, that of the dollar rose by 12.2 percent to D70 and the pound sterling rose by 20.6 percent to D93.
Such depreciation has far reaching impact on inflation and the growth of poverty. There is therefore need to review the fundamentals of the economy and address the high dependency on imports and low level of exports or the production of goods and services as substitution for imports.
