General News of Saturday, 21 February 2015
Source: Graphic Online
Founder of the International Leadership Foundation (ILF), Dr Delanyo Adadevoh, has called for an aggressive leadership that will lead the country into a better future.
According to him, any development agenda without a strong and aggressive leadership backed by enlightened citizens would cause the country’s development aspirations to be a mirage.
“We cannot develop by trading other people’s resources; we have to build the capacity to transfer our own natural resources and add value to them,” he said.
Delivering an inaugural lecture at the annual lectures dubbed “Ethics and Leadership”, instituted by the Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE) in Accra, Dr Adedevoh said he was looking for the day when Ghanaians would agitate against the country’s development agenda which had been going back and forth over the years”.
Delivering his address on the topic “Transformational Leadership and Ethics: A key Driver for Excellence and Wealth Creation”, Dr Adadevoh said in countries such as the United States of America (USA), issues of development agenda were settled and untouchable such that subsequent governments had no choice but to continue from where their predecessors left off.
Dr Adadevoh, who also serves as the Chairman of the Interim Leadership Team for the African Forum on Religion and Government (AFREG), said the gap left between developing countries and the Western World was a technological one which ought to be bridged.
He added that the skills of an aggressive leadership in the country had been lost, saying that “the time had come for all Ghanaians to embrace the kind of leadership that would lead the country into a true development”.
Dr Adadevoh said leadership involved engaging, equipping and empowering a growing force of willing followers to accomplish a commonly owned vision.
He expressed regret at the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), which allowed the country unlimited access to the European market, while the Europeans exported their goods to Ghana duty free.
He said such a move meant that Ghana’s development agenda would be delayed for the next 20 years, since already the country was a net importer of finished products from the developed countries.
A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Issifu Tanko Amadu, expressed concern about the rate buildings collapsed and asked the Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE) to sit up.
He urged them to set up a task force that would monitor structures being put up and ensure that there was a structural engineer on the project otherwise the developers should be made to stop.
Mr Justice Amadu, who launched the lectures on behalf of the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, urged the engineering body to endeavour to bring any of their members found to have been involved in the construction of a collapsed structure to book, adding that “you must, however, give them a fair hearing”.
The President of the GhIE, Mr Magnus Lincoln Quarshie, explained that the “Ethics and Leadership” Lecture Series had been instituted by the GhIE to be held in February of every year for the enhancement of ethical practice of the profession.