The Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, has blamed the ravaging poverty that has devastated the West Africa sub-region - apparently in the midst of abundance - on the absence of sustained visionary leadership of its institutions.

He noted that the region is endowed with resources - natural, mineral and human - and that it is inexcusable for it (sub-region) to be where it is currently.

The Vice-President was speaking at the opening ceremony of the second annual “Daily Graphic” Dialoque on the theme, “Accelerating Regional Integration For Wealth Creation and Sustainable Development,” in Accra three days ago.

He expressed regret at the developmental status of the sub-region and Africa as a whole against the background that the indigenes are learned and intelligent people who had acquitted themselves well in the service of the world and the continent.

According to the Veep, more than 40 percent of Africans live below the international standard of a dollar a day. In addition, the continent’s share of world trade is only two percent.

Vice President Mahama resented the fact that despite the various poverty alleviation interventions like NEPAD, the ECOWAS Protocols, AGOA, the UNDP, World Bank, IMF and the African Development Bank (ADB), the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and other bilateral arrangements with the European Union (EU) in Africa, there is still a high illiteracy level, low life expectancy and threats of hunger and disease.

According to him, the bane of underdevelopment in the sub-region is the absence of strong institutions that will ensure better service delivery, the absorption and utilization of extra support in aid and foreign investment.

He called for initiatives that would stir the public services from their slumber, lethargy and insecurity, to come on board and complement effectively the development agenda.

The Veep also called for the “harnessing of the expertise of civil society in independent research, monitoring and evaluation, that would offer a reality check which could be invaluable in supporting constructive engagement among all stakeholders”.

This paper agrees with the Veep in his observations and prescriptions to salvaging our woes, and hopes that such genuine urgings by people of his standing do not only serve as part of the talk-shop formalities, but are passionately given the necessary oxygen to effect the desired changes.