Dr Victor Kwame Agyemang, Director of the Forest Plantations Development Centre (FPDC) at Akyawkrom, near Ejisu, has said that the university system in Ghana was too rigid and not able to respond to changes. This he said had created a relatively poor graduate employment situation in the forestry sector in spite of its importance.

Dr Agyemang was delivering a lecture at the 10th in the series of the Golden Jubilee Inter-Faculty Lectures of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi at the weekend. His topic was: "The Impact of Natural Resources Management on National Development".

Employers in the sector have complained that graduates of the Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (IRNR) did not attain the requisite skills and knowledge for employment, Dr Agyemang said and called on the Institute to address the problem.

He said a major problem with countries in Sub-Sahara Africa, including Ghana, was the over dependence on their natural resources for economic and social needs than any other region in the world. "Unless we depart from this practice, we will continue to be poor", he said. He said at present only 16 per cent of the nation's forest was vibrant and that due to the extent of degradation, only 50 per cent out of this could be put under production, while the remaining was protected.

Dr Agyemang said Ghana loses about 24 million dollars, translating into some 65,000 hectares of vegetative cover, through bush fires annually. The loss represented about three percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to him the country also consumed between 220,000 tons to 380,000 tons of bush meat valued at between 210 million dollars and 380 million dollars annually while the annual soil products earn only 13 million dollars. He expressed regret that even though about 30 per cent of land was put under cultivation, the country had not been able to attain food sufficiency.