[Ghana] Laziness, envy - root causes of rural poverty

from The Accra Daily Mail

A lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has observed that negative attitudes such as laziness and envy are the root causes of rural poverty in Ghana.

According to Dr Sylvanus Kwami Amenuke, these vices degenerate into gossip, drunkenness and the tendency of people to resort to charms, sorcery and related practices to eliminate others.

He made his remarks at the launch of an "Urbanization and Industrial Development Programme (AUIDP)" at Akoefe in Ho. He noted that although not all communities are endowed with economic resources such as cocoa, timber, gold and bauxite, there are abundant human resources in all the areas.

Regrettably however, Dr. Amenuke said, many communities have allowed their valuable human resource potentials to go waste. "All they do is to drink, smoke, gather and gossip - and out of envy plan how to eliminate those who are helping to develop their environment", he observed. He said sometimes people capable of investing in their rural communities are afraid to do so for the fear of being killed.

Dr Amenuke called on chiefs and opinion leaders in the communities to "clear the envy and discrimination" from the minds of their people to pave way for investment in their areas.

Mr. Noskim Atidigah, an opinion leader of Akoefe, noted that a drastic reduction in the export of primary commodities could lead to increase in the export of secondary commodities through acquired technologies leading to innovative competition, citing India's consumer goods industries such as textiles, sugar, cement and paper. He described Ghana's economic development pattern as "nothing more, nor less than keeping its nose above water."

He suggested that for a significant reduction in poverty and unemployment to be achieved, the country's economic growth rate must double in the medium term to sustain the transformation of rural-led industries into innovative production units.