Government urged to resource CSIR
Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, Election 2016 Independent Presidential Candidate, has urged government to resource the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for effective research
He stressed the need for sponsorship of Scientific Research for the sustenance of Industries in the country.
“Ghana has been endowed with a lot of potential and huge natural and human resources and therefore has no excuse to fail industrially”.
He said Industrialization starts with research scientists and could only be sustainable through continuous interaction with industrial research findings.
Mr Yeboah said this at the 28th Annual General Meeting of the Research Staff Association of the CSIR, on the theme: “CSIR as the Catalyst for Accelerated Sustainable Industrial Growth in a Healthy Environment”, held in Gomoa Fetteh in the Central Region.
According to him, nations whose leaders have lost the providential way towards national development would fail to resource Councils as the CSIR for effective delivery of their mandates towards scientific national development.
He said industrialization does not only impart on economic growth of the nation but also on the social and the environmental developments.
He said CSIR was a major tool for industrialization adding that “CSIR is the catalyst of industrialization and it is non-negotiable for serious and genuine industrialization of Ghana”.
Mr Yeboah said CSIR should have a non-destructible structure but should continually be in a position to initiate and accelerate sustainable industrialization in a healthy environment.
Mr Yeboah said that for CSIR to be a catalyst for industrialization there should be a strategic positioning of Institute of Industrial Research (IIR) as the penultimate step towards industrialization after the establishment of scientific research findings.
He said when Ghana utilizes the technologies available to her the country would be in the best position to create jobs for its teaming youth.
He said the government’s flagship policy of “One District One Factory,” is a good start but said “it is just a drop in the ocean of industrialization when it comes under the lenses of CSIR”.
He said without the involvement of the CSIR, the current implementation model of ‘One District One Factory,’ might not generate the critical number of employment for the youth.
Professor Victor K. Agyeman, CSIR Director-General in a speech read on his behalf said the focus of the council was to help run the nation and its development process without aid.
He said: “this country cannot grow and reach where we all aspire to, if there is no sustainable industrial growth to transform the economic fortunes of this country”.
According to him, all the economic giants of the world and that of emerging economies got to where they are through industrialization adding that Ghana could not afford to delay any longer.
He urged government to create an enabling environment to encourage the private sector and particularly the financial institutions to support long term financing in research.
Source: GNA