----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Mensah" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 9:22 PM
Subject: [unioNews] Invest in InformationTechnology!


Tuesday, November 11, 2003
<H3>INVEST IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY!</H3>
GHANA COULD be transformed, within a relatively short time, into a
middle-income earning economy if she can position herself as the
leading ICT centre within the West African sub-Region.

With a population of over 200 million that is growing at three per
cent per annum, demand within the sub-Region exists to make it
economically feasible and sustainable.

However, to attain this, there must be the political will and right
leadership, for, no amount of wishful thinking can turn the country
into the African "Silicon Valley"

Indeed, we do not have to re-invent the wheel to be able to move
forward. Historical examples exist to show us the way ahead: Take
Singapore. Dr. Lee Kuan Yew, the father-founder of the tiny nation,
actually a city-state, made the development of their human resources
base as the most important factor and within two decades, was able to
transform Singapore into a middle-income economy.

Another example is Malaysia , where Tunku Abdul Rahman and his
successor, Dr. Mahathir Mohammed together have been able to make that
country the envy of its post-independence peers - Ghana included!

<B>These leaders did not use any magic wands. All they did was to
create the enabling environments: investment in education,
institutional changes in all sectors and the attitudinal changes that
made the people proud of who they are, a patriotic citizenry!</B>

To achieve a leading role as the Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) centre for the West Africa sub-region, the
government needs to make a sea change in its approach to the issue.

It needs to make a massive investment into technical education.
Curricular changes must be made so that the youth can appreciate the
importance of ICTs in the future of this country and the world at
large.

As an IT expert recently observed, it is not as if Indians were any
smarter than Ghanaians to be able to become the leading exporters of
computer programming in the world. Simply put, the government has
created the structures that have made it easy for Indians to push the
limits of their creativity and thus make Bangalore an IT centre that
now rivals California's Silicon Valley.

The Chronicle believes that if the government is serious about making
the private sector the engine of growth, then incentives must be
given to make venture capitalism attractive. Young men and women with
promise must be able to source cheap capital to make them creatively
adventurous; to enable them take risks that can help us leap frog
into the 21st century. Money is too expensive in Ghana!

Again, the institutional changes that need to be made to attract
capital must be put in place, especially in the case of ICTs.

Until these problems are tackled, we will only be behaving like
beggars wishing horses. In a situation where 45 per cent or more of
our budget depends on donor support, we will forever remain at the
fringes of development, never able to break through the debilitating
chains of poverty that encircle us.

<B>Ghana can make it, yes we all agree. But how? What our political
leadership must realize is that, if they don't make the right
decision, history will not forgive them.

The Chronicle believes, now is the time for the government to be
proactive to save the future of our youth. Already, a whole
generation has gone to waste in the past 20 years. Can we afford to
waste the next generation too?</B>

© Copyright 1999 - 2002. Ghanaian Chronicle. All Rights Reserved



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QUOTATION:

"All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishments of an African
empire, so strong and powerful as to compel the respect of mankind, but we
in our lifetime can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility
within another generation"
-<html><A HREF="http://members.aol.com/GhanaUnion/afrohero.html">Ancestor
Marcus Mosiah Garvey <i>(1887 - 1940)</i></A></html>

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A luta Continua!

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