African governments must step up efforts to mobilise resources locally to finance their development programmes, President of the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), Dr. K.Y Amoako has said.
That, he stressed, would reduce Africa’s dependence on aid to finance their budgets and other developmental projects.
Dr. Amoako disclosed this in an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the African Transformation Forum (ATF) 2018 in Accra to brainstorm on policy measures and transformational strategies to accelerate Africa’s development.
The two-day programme, the second to be organised by ACET, under the theme, ‘Convene, strategise, transform’ is featuring diverse and distinguished voices from government, business, civil society and philanthropy including heads of state, African ministers and chief executive officers from all over Africa.
Dr. Amoako suggested that reduction in tax exemptions could be one of the ways African governments could raise revenue locally, stressing that African government “should take a second look at the issue of exemptions”.
He also said the imposition of property tax was another avenue African governments could raise revenues locally considering the properties springing up on the continent.
Turning his focus on the ATF2018, Dr. Amoako said the ATF2018 was Africa’s only continent-wide event devoted solely to the promotion of economic transformation.
He said though Africa was developing, its economies were not being transformed for the benefit of her citizens.
“While Africa show signs of growth – it is not transforming as we have seen countries do in other regions. Without this transformation (or what we call growth with depth), we will miss tremendous opportunities that will have ramifications for the future generations,” he said, adding that it was in that direction that the ACET was founded and the ATF was initiated.
Dr Amoako said the forum would discuss thematic topics in the areas of agriculture, manufacturing, skills development and youth employment, extractives and resource mobilisation and come out with strategies to develop those sectors.
The President also said the forum would discuss and review ACET’s African Transformation Report 2017 titled Agriculture Powering Africa’s Economic Transformation.
He said last year’s forum, which was attended by President Paul Kagame, was not a “talk shop, but a robust exploration of policy challenges – and a catalyst for new approaches,” and said this year’s forum would proved same.
Dr. Amoako expressed gratitude to the government of Ghana and other partners for supporting and sponsoring the programme.
The Board Chairman of ACET, Tito Mboweni in his opening remarks said the forum was an important programme for ACET since it provided opportunity to discuss practical measures to address Africa’s development challenges.
Source: The Ghanaian Times