Professor Ernest Aryeetey is former VC of UG
A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Emeritus Professor Ernest Aryeetey, has criticised successive governments for failing to take full ownership of the country’s economic reform agenda.
He argued that Ghana’s economic direction has, for too long, been shaped by the World Bank, the IMF, and external consultants, often at the expense of home-grown expertise and clearly defined national priorities.
“In a way, when we went to the Washington Group to seek support for what we were doing, we didn’t always go to them with a clear plan of what we wanted. We often want to say something like we want to do something about agriculture, and they would say, ‘Okay, fine, we’ll send you some experts to come and help you,’” Professor Aryeetey said, as quoted by citinewsroom.com
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His remarks revive a long-standing debate about whether Ghana’s repeated dependence on Bretton Woods institutions has truly advanced its economic independence or simply deepened its reliance on external direction.
According to him, these experts, usually from diverse international backgrounds, naturally promote solutions that work in their own countries, which do not always align with Ghana’s unique realities.
“These experts are coming from different countries; they are going to sell to you what they do in their own countries. And this is because we have not invested enough in the capacity of people who could tell the government how to transform our sectors,” he explained.
Professor Aryeetey emphasised that true transformation will only come when Ghana develops and trusts its own technical expertise to design and execute reform strategies tailored to its context.
“You don’t let a World Bank consultant come and tell you what you need to do. You should be telling him or her, ‘This is what I want to do, can you help me structure it?’ Not ask them what you should do,” he cautioned.
SSD/MA
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