2018 New Year School Ends In Accra

The 69th Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYSC), has ended in Accra, with a call for a policy that will mandate all state agencies to purchase made in Ghana products.

The participants in a communique said as a way of ensuring Ghanaian products were competitive domestically and globally, government through the Ghana Standards Authority and other regulatory agencies, strictly enforce international standards through local associations for the production of goods and services.

It urged Government to use its purchasing power to ensure compliance.

The event on the theme 'Job Creation for Accelerated National Development: The Role of the Private Sector', recorded 320 participants, which is the highest ever over the past decade.

The annual event provides a platform for a dispassionate discussion of important issues of national and international concern.

The communique recommended that in ensuring that Ghana attracts private investments into the agricultural value chain, the Government through the Ministries of Food and Agriculture, Health and Education should strengthen and make it compulsory, the policy that requires Government institutions to purchase produce from local farmers.

It said Government should enforce the Land Use and Spatial Plan Act (Act 925) through Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority to ensure that all lands were properly planned before permitting development on them; adding that, this should include the protection of lands earmarked for industrial parks.

It said the Bank of Ghana (BoG) should outline a clear policy that would facilitate the reduction of the cost of doing business by ensuring that, interest rates charged by banks were not overly higher than the BoG Monetary Policy Rate.

It also recommended that there should be transparency in the determination of interest rates by commercial banks.

It called for productive partnership between Government and the private sector to pursue the Government's role as a facilitator more seriously and strategically.

Professor Samuel Kwame Offei, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Academic and Students Affairs, University of Ghana, said the University was in the process of reviewing its undergraduate degree programmes, and that, going forward, their programmes at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, would concentrate on creating the 21st century graduate, by focusing more on critical and analytical thinking, entrepreneurship and intellectual development.

Professor Michael Ayitey Tagoe, the Provost, College of Education, and the Dean, School of Continuing and Distance Education, University of Ghana, said one of the major outcome of the 69th ANYSC had been to stress on the fact that Government alone could not create jobs.

He said the private sector must be seen to be leading the agenda of job creation in Ghana.

The ANYSC was organised by the School of Continuing and Distance Education of the College of Education, University of Ghana, under the auspices of Komos Energy, Vodafone Ghana, Goil, Voltic, Daily Graphic, Prudential Bank and the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana.