Ghana can't develop without technology - Frimpong-Boateng

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, has said that he finds it hard to believe that Ghana is a middle-income country whiles intimating that the country must invest more in the technology sector.

Prof Frimpong-Boateng said he found it hard to believe that Ghana had achieved that status when there is wide-spread poverty in the country.

Speaking on Joy Midday News, Prof Frimpong-Boateng bemoaned the little investments being made in the science and technology sector and said there is the need to invest heavily in the sector in order to befit the middle-income status.

“Look at the way we want to develop! Which country ever took the path that we are taking and developed?” he asked rhetorically.

“The poverty gap is technology gap. If we don't develop indigenous science and technology and start doing things ourselves, we'll get nowhere” he said.

Throwing more light on the investment in that sector, he said, “Our research fund is just 0.05% of GDP” stating that the percentage was too little to aid in development.

He fingered the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as well as the University for Mine Studies as being inefficient in the promotion of technology in the country.

“We've had the University for Mines Studies for more than 40 years, so what are we doing? We've had the University for Science and Technology for 50 years and so on [but] what has been the output? What is wrong?” he said.

“We know what is happening in the world, we know why we are poor, we know what should be done and we still don't get it,” he lamented.