African Countries should take advantage of the growth in technology- Prez Mahama

• Posted on June 14, 2013
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

President John Dramani Mahama has called on African leaders to liberalize and deregulate the energy and farming sectors in their various countries for greater investment which will help in creating jobs.

President Mahama said: “In my own country Ghana, we deregulated the telecommunication sector some years back, and it has been instrumental in raising telecommunication and general technology transfer of knowledge in information and communication in the entire country”.

He was addressing African Diplomatic Corps in London, as part of his three-day visit to the United Kingdom.

Apart from meeting Prime Minister David Cameron and the business community in the United Kingdom, President Mahama will attend the G8 summit, which is focused on tax, trade, transparency and the extractive industry.

President Mahama said there was the need for countries to take advantage of the growth in technology, to develop the energy sector that was pivotal for investment and infrastructural development on the African continent.

He noted that with the spate of economic crisis in Europe and other continents, the onus was on Africa to take up that challenge and absorb the investors as the next growth pole after Europe and the Asian Tigers over the years.

On agriculture, the President said Africa was abounding with adequate arable land that could become the food basket of the world in the coming years, and urged African countries to deregulate investment in agriculture to achieve that goal.

President Mahama urged African leaders to avoid investments that could widen the gap between the poor and rich in their countries, by partnering investors that would create a win-win situation for job creation and capacity building.

On general development, he mentioned that African countries could not develop without embracing democracy and good governance and therefore appealed to African countries to ensure the effective entrenchment of democracy to pave way for socio-economic development.


GNA