Dr Joe Abbey, Executive Director of the Center for Policy Analysis (CEPA), has cautioned government to be prudent in its use of national resources.

“We have to be more effective in the collection of our resources and our use of them to be able to develop. Our political process should be aligned with our development process and not vain arguments between political parties. Leaders should deliver and stop blaming their opponents on their failures. We need to make sure that our choice of leaders and parliamentarians are anchored on their capacity to deliver.”

Dr Abbey gave the warning after the launch of the Africa Capacity Indicators report in Accra on Friday by the Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). Ghana was ranked third in Africa for its strategy in managing natural resources out of 45 countries in Africa. “Ghana is now graduating from the era where it usually received support from donors who lend money on soft terms, and sometimes prescribed solutions for us.

Ghana’s role in international affairs is changing. We reached completion point, earned debt cancellation and rebased our income and realized that our income was bigger than had been thought of before. We also discovered oil in commercial quantities.

So, we are graduating from donor care. Now during the period of difficulty, we build capacity but if we do not use the capacity, they migrate out. So we see that even though we have built capacity in the country, if such people are not employed or utilized, we miss the reason for which we built their capacity.”

He advised Ghanaians not to “hold government to political debates for power but deliver on the development promises they make. Capacity-building without results is meaningless.”

The survey aggregates weights of countries’ general strategy for managing natural resources, capacity to develop policies for use of those resources, achievement of developmental results, and the country’s degree of economic diversification and its use of revenue for development.

Dr Frannie Leautier, Executive Secretary of ACBF, told journalists that Ghana’s rating was as a result of her policy implementation capacity.

“Ghana is making strides both on the implementation front and also in the pushing to get development results. But work still needs to be going into building dynamic capacity because this is a fast moving field with scientific knowledge and other elements needed.”

Overall most countries are doing well with strategy but they encountered major problems with implementation and designing policy, she said. The survey also found that countries that were doing well in natural resource management had concentrated on the value chain.