Dr. Anthony Oteng-Gyasi, an industrialist and Governing Board Member of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), says Ghana’s economic policies at the macro and micro levels create more traders than industrialists.

Dr. Gyasi said the government’s economic policies encouraged the country’s entrepreneurs to spend their energies obtaining lucrative contracts for imported goods rather than establishing manufacturing industries.

He said government economic policies on exchange rate stability and legislative tax exemptions undermined indigenous production.

This situation, he said, had culminated in creating more traders in the country than industrialists.

He made the remarks at the University of Ghana Alumni Lecture, which was held at Legon Hall.

“As a nation, many of our best and brightest find it easier to spend their energies on obtaining lucrative contracts for imported goods and services rather than the hard work involved in setting up and growing manufacturing industries," he said.

He added, “The reward system is skewed because, over the years, national policies in the country, both on the micro and macro levels of the economy, do not support production; instead, every policy benefits importing second-hand goods through tax exemptions granted by the government, which weakens local production.”

Dr Gyasi said the government’s hesitancy to enforce local content laws and tax exemptions provided importers an advantage over local producers, so “it is not surprising that we have become a nation of traders.’’

In the process of granting these exemptions and making the hesitancy to enforce local content laws, the industrialist said the country had lost opportunity in creating manufacturing jobs.

This challenge, according to him, further exacerbates the unemployment crisis in the country.

One action of the government, he noted, had contributed to the phenomenon was the policy of appeasing the majority of voters, mostly traders, through import tax reductions.

He contended that the reduction or increment of import taxes had become the route to seeking and retaining political power in the country.

He said the means of ending poverty in the country were not low prices and cheap goods but manufacturing, production, and the provision of skilled jobs.

Dr Gyasi said policies such as the identification of the appropriate value chain of the country’s natural resources, making manufacturing policies based on these chains, and providing resources to manufacturing companies could encourage industrialisation.

He also advised the government to prioritise industrialisation through the provision of market access to local producers.

He further advised the regulatory agencies to adopt a facilitating framework instead of a policing framework.