Ghana not serious about changing the structure of its economy – Dr Ishmael Yamson

Respected Economist, Dr Ishmael Yamson, says managers of the economy both past and present have not been serious about changing the structure of the Ghanaian economy.

Speaking in an interview on PM Express Business Edition monitored by norvanreports, Dr Yamson noted the Ghanaian economy has been the same as it was since his days as a student, asserting nothing remarkable has been done to change the fundamentals of the economy and that the country has missed all the opportunities it had to restructure the economy.

According to him, the country continues to remain a net importer rather than a net exporter.

“We have not been serious about changing the structure of the economy, we are still a net importer and we have not been able to develop our manufacturing sector.

“We must admit that we have a problem, which is that we still have an economy that is the same as it was when I was a student, it hasn’t changed even several years after independence,” he remarked.

Touching on the subject of Ghana’s inability to access the international capital market, Dr Yamson stated that the country’s situation is so dire that for the first time Ghana is unable to access Eurobonds to undertake developmental projects.

“My own experience is if you want to solve a problem, you must understand what that problem is and you must admit what the problem is. The admission that you have a problem to me is 80% of the solution. Because if you admit that you have a problem then you are more eager to look for a solution. But it doesn’t seem to me that we accept the fact that we’re in very difficult times.

“It is a very difficult situation we have to the extent that we can’t access Europe money. And don’t forget Europe money help this country a lot to stabilize the macro environment, the fiscal environment, and the moment we lost it, we were exposed,” he said.

Speaking further in the interview, he noted that country’s overreliance on oil money was a rather dangerous venture especially taking into consideration that most of the world’s superpowers have set into motion plans to phase out their production and use of fossil fuel products in the coming years.

According to him, even though the country may be enjoying a positive trade balance as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, when the price of oil tumbles, the country will be hit very hard.

“I think we have been saved to some extent because global commodity prices have shot up. Oil price, this morning 230 dollars per barrel of brent crude oil. So that will tell you that Ghana has, you know, our trade balance has improved dramatically.

“But for me it’s just deceiving ourselves that our trade balance has improved. It has improved because there’s a crisis in the world that has pushed world market prices to 230, so if we’re producing oil but we’re a net importer we’ll pay the price. So the first point is that we haven’t been serious about changing the structure of our economy,” he noted.

He added that, “Today people come here and if you look at the source of foreign exchange revenue, the oil money its simple. Everybody knows once you get there you’ll make money. But if we should think deep, oil is a sunset industry. Very soon all these fossil fuel products where will they be?

“The Europeans, the Americans, they’re all saying by 2030 they’re not going to produce oil. So if you are putting your faith in an industry which is disappearing and we’re so happy doing that, and we’re happy because we have improved our trade balance because oil prices has gone up tomorrow if oil prices crashes to 40 dollars where will we be?”