Accra, July 24, GNA - Mr. Ishmael Yamson, Founder and Chairman of Yamson and Associates, on Thursday expressed fears that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would fail because the eight goals were not anchored on the dreams and aspirations of poor countries on whom they were imposed.

He said for the same reasons, "I also have very little faith that the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) will achieve its mission." "Indeed I am tempted to share the sentiments that all these will quietly fade in the memory like their predecessor turn-of-millennium fantasies," he said.

Mr Yamson made the remark in his keynote address at the launch of Ghana First Forum (GFF), a new non-partisan, non-political and non-profit think tank dedicated to becoming a catalyst for the economic and social transformation of Ghana. The think tank, co-founded by 30 eminent Ghanaians, business leaders, clergymen and scholars, is intended to influence development thinking through constructive dialogue with the view to generating a clear national vision and a clear strategic development agenda, among other things for Ghana.

The GFF, whose membership would cut across the entire nation, other than just a few intellectuals as in the case of other think tanks, would thrive on such core values as non-partisanship, objectivity, credibility, trust, authority and impeccable integrity. Mr. Yamson observed that, of all the presidents of Ghana, it was only Dr Kwame Nkrumah who had a clear vision and a big dream for the transformation of the country. He said Dr. Nkrumah's dream was persuasive and clearly stated as "a strong and progressive Ghana in which no one will have any anxiety about the basic needs of life, about work, food and shelter; where poverty and illiteracy no longer exist, disease is brought under control and where our educational facilities provide all the children with the best possible opportunities for development of their potentials."

Mr. Yamson noted that since the overthrow of Dr Nkrumah, successive governments had ignored his dream and had also failed to dream big themselves.

"They have only been quick to surrender our right to determining our own aspirations to the Bretton Woods Institutions, the donor community and the United Nations," he said.

He said as a result since, independence the structure of Ghana's economy had remained hooked on basic commodities such as gold and cocoa, which were at the mercy of rampant world price fluctuations and as such the country had been left in an unending cycle of poverty and dependency on donors.

"That is why the 1980s failed to bring water and sanitation to the great-unwashed people of the world, including the unwashed in Ghana. "That is why the 1990s failed to provide education and health for all by 2000 and that is why the MDGs will fail to deliver the 'eight commandments' imposed on poor nations of the world including Ghana," he said.

Mr. Yamson said Ghana needed leaders who would take risk to dream big and develop a clear national vision that would outlive every political party and their beliefs and also focus on delivering on that vision no matter how unpopular it may sound to the international community. He said GFF would therefore engage stakeholders to focus the national debate, to mobilize ideas and assist with activation and implementation of change ideas, no matter which political party was in power. The vision, he said, was to see complete structural change of Ghana's economy from a raw material based one to an industrial one and thereby bring about complete economic and social transformation within the next decade.

He therefore called on Ghanaians to use the forthcoming December polls to choose a leader based on their understanding of the issues that confronted them and who could resolve those issues in their best interest. "This election should be about ideas and not personalities; it must be about the future and not the past; it must be more about content than character and above all it should be about the candidates' demonstrated ability to deliver performance and not about promises and rhetoric," he said.

He said the aim of Ghana in the December polls should be to elect leaders who could create a dynamic and robust economy and prosperous future for all Ghanaians in the current uncertain globalized world. The Rev. Dr. Mensa Otabil, a founding member of GFF, said economic transformation was possible within the next decade if Ghanaians focused their energies on the core development principles of a clear vision, leadership commitment to the vision, and the people's commitment to work and to the right values.

He therefore called on Ghanaians not to abandon their destinies in the hands of politicians, but use GFF as a platform to get involved in the economic and social transformation of the country.

"Politicians have democratised poverty to the extent they always go for negotiations on the premise that we are poor and even they themselves become poor when the party they serve leaves political power," he said.

Dr. Stephen Adei, Rector of GIMPA and founding member of GFF, assured the public the GFF would be completely non-partisan, adding that even though the think tank did not boast of having all the answers it would go the full distance to ensure that its proposal were implemented for the betterment of the country.