Leader and Founder of United Front Party (UFP) Akwesi Addai Odike has underscored that the only way Ghana can develop is by devising creative means of mobilizing resources, and not relying on loans.

The businessman cum politician wondered why the country is endowed with many natural resources and yet lags behind in development.

The leader of UFP was speaking on Onua FM’s news analysis program Ghana Dadwen on President John Dramani Mahama’s State of the Nation Address delivered to Parliament on Thursday 25th February, 2016.

President Mahama in his address said the slump in commodity prices has had a significant effect on the country’s balance of payments and revenue. He spoke about the need to intensify value-addition, especially gold, for exports.

But Akwesi Addai Odike opined that such pronouncements by the president are mere rhetoric without providing any concrete solution to the country’s debilitating economic situations.

“I was expecting the president to tell us how he will put money in our pocket. At least that was what he the president said some time ago” Odike said in a telephone interview with the host of Ghana Dadwen Bright Kwesi Asempa.

“Our country is rich, we just need creative leaders, leaders who will turn our natural resources into fortunes for the country,” he said.

Odike maintained that instead of the President telling the teeming unemployed graduates how avenues will be created for them to get employed, he (president) spent time on self gratification.

On his part, Independent candidate in the 2012 general elections, Jacob Osei Yeboah blamed Ghana’s under development on lack of focus.

“The theory is too much, let us focus attention now on the fundamentals, and we shall make it…

“I was not enthused when he did not spend much time telling us the true state of our economy and how to be out of this quagmire” Joy 2012 explained.