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Poor quality infrastructure services affect
growth--Report
Accra, Sept. 11, Ghanadot/GNA - The World Bank Country
Economic Memorandum (CEM) report, on Tuesday said Ghana's
key infrastructure services were not only short in supply
but were characterized by poor quality and unreliable,
leading to serious implications for growth.
According to the report, Ghana's overall spending on
infrastructure needed to be doubled to close severe
infrastructure gaps as well as help sustain rapid economic
growth.
Mr. Zeljko Bogetic, Task Team Manager of CEM, said poor
infrastructure services substantially increases the cost of
doing business and hampered Ghana's prospects to attract
investment and its ambitions to become a regional hub in
West Africa.
He mentioned the energy, water and sanitation, Information
Communication Technology and Telecommunications sectors as
those that were seriously characterized by poor qualities.
Mr. Bogetic was presenting a report on "Infrastructure for
Accelerated Growth in Ghana: Needs and Challenges" at a
four-day forum organised by the World Bank and the
Government of Ghana.
It was on the theme, "Meeting the Challenge of Accelerated
and Shared Growth in Ghana - Country Economic Memorandum
Dissemination."
Mr Bogetic said Ghana has to tailor expenditure to the
sectors that were in most need and to improve the
performance of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), through which
the bulk of the infrastructure expenditure was channelled.
"To date, the transport sector has attracted the lion's
share of the expenditures. The energy and water and
sanitation crises call for more attention to be devoted to
these crucial sectors," he said.
Mr Bogetic said there was also a strong divide between rural
and urban areas in terms of infrastructure stock, quantity
and quality of service.
He said this divide was particularly striking, not only
across regions but also at the district and sub-district
levels.
"While poverty measures are much higher in the Northern,
Upper Eastern, and Upper Western regions, there are several
pockets of poverty in the forest areas of the country -
Western, Brong Ahafo, and Ashanti regions, as well as in the
costal areas - Central and Volta regions," he said.
Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, Deputy Governor, Bank of Ghana said the
huge sums of money that were used to subsidise petroleum
products in the past made it impossible for government to
provide much needed infrastructure elsewhere.
He said although government was pumping in money to cushion
the public in that area, the country was at the same time
losing investments in that area and commended the government
for taking such a bold step to deregulate the petroleum
sector.
He, therefore, stressed the need to look critically for
energy policy and issues on tariffs to entice private sector
investment.
GNA
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