As Ghana grapples with a tottering economy, the Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance, has urged economists to use plain vernacular\/English in their public communication. This will enable them contribute effectively to shaping and driving public"},"modified":"2019-07-09T21:23:45","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T21:23:45","slug":"communicate-in-simple-language-for-easy-comprehension-dalex-ceo-urges-economists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/07\/09\/communicate-in-simple-language-for-easy-comprehension-dalex-ceo-urges-economists\/","title":{"rendered":"Communicate in simple language for easy comprehension \u2013 Dalex CEO urges economists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As Ghana grapples with a tottering economy, the Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance, has urged economists to use plain vernacular\/English in their public communication. This will enable them contribute effectively to shaping and driving public policy.<\/p>\n
According to him, \u201c..the use of meaningless and empty phrases to make it look like people know what they are talking about must stop\u2026..\u201d and he also urged them to \u201c\u2026be passionate about economics as the pastors are about their collections\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Thompson, speaking at a forum to launch the \u2018K. B. Amissah Arthur Chair in Economics\u2019 initiative, lamented the worsening state of affairs of the country\u2019s economy, and was unhappy with the failure of economists to effectively engage policy makers to provide solutions to the country\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n
According to the Chartered Accountant, \u201cthe economic challenges facing Ghana are complex – high youth unemployment, high debt levels, low national income, compensation of employees, interest expense and statutory deductions constituting an average of over 90% of the country\u2019s budgeted income. This leaves very little money for investment\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said academia needs to lobby for change and develop long term relationships with policy makers either directly or indirectly. These relationships should be based on mutual trust and respect.<\/p>\n
“Although civil servants and politicians sometimes lack expert knowledge in their policy fields, they react unfavourably, if at all, to lengthy technical and opaque documents that academia produces. We have often try to circumvent the need for healthy engagement by encouraging academia to cross over to active politics.
\nThere have been several successes in pursuing this work around including H.E Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur of blessed memory, Dr. Kwesi Botchway and Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta also of blessed memory, and others too numerous to mention. This route, despite the many success stories is not a sustainable way to achieve the objective of academia influencing policy, because the danger is that the academics who become partisan politicians may fall into the same trap as the policy makers they seek to influence”.<\/p>\n
“In 1983, when Ghanaians repatriated from Nigeria, our population was 14.2 million, 36 years later it is approximately 30 million and by 2050, 31 years from now it is projected to be approximately 52 million. And this is a country whose economy is based on the extractive sector. Our biggest export is gold, followed by oil, then cocoa. Golden Star Resources, project that two of their mines in Ghana have an average remaining life span of 5 years. We therefore have big issues to contend with” he noted.<\/p>\n
“There are three main reasons why academia frequently fails to influence policy – failure to produce clear outcomes without caveats, reluctance to clearly define policy implications, difficulty in communicating findings in an accessible way. At that point, the policy makers are looking for their Prophet or Alhaji” he added.<\/p>\n
About Dalex Finance<\/strong><\/p>\n Dalex Finance, established and licensed by the Bank of Ghana (BoG), is wholly Ghanaian owned and operated.<\/p>\n Over the last four years, the company\u2019s turnover has grown by over 100% on a compound annual basis.<\/p>\n Dalex Finance has a nationwide operation, and employs over 3000 persons and has over 100 Sales Points in all sixteen regions of the country.<\/p>\n The post Communicate in simple language for easy comprehension – Dalex CEO urges economists appeared first on Citi Newsroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Ghana grapples with a tottering economy, the Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance, has urged economists to use plain vernacular\/English in their public communication. This will enable them contribute effectively to shaping and driving public policy. According to him, \u201c..the use of meaningless and empty phrases to make it look like people know what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":653366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\n