A former president of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), and Executive Chairman of Celltel Networks Ltd., Dr Prince Kofi Kludjeson, has shared his perspective on some major causes of Ghana's developmental challenges.

According to him, the citizens think governments are making efforts to fix things, but in reality that is not the case.

The business mogul, who spoke on Joy Prime’s morning show asserted that private individuals who own companies are rather contributing to the development of the country.

He said the government only grants official permits to these private organisations to proceed with their developmental projects.

"Speaking to Roselyn Felli on Wednesday, he said, "The problem again in Ghana is that everybody thinks that governments do things, but governments do not do anything. That’s one of the major problems that we have."

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He attributed his claim to the fact that the majority of companies in the United States are owned by private individuals. "They’re all private people who began the journey. You need government licences or regulatory support," he said.

In the same way, he is of the view that non-governmental organisations in Ghana including his entity are creating the most developmental projects in the country.

As the Executive Chairman of Celltel Networks Ltd., he is coming up with a project dubbed, “The Smart City” which is sponsored by American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation, Cisco.

According to him, the project aims at transforming Ghana to another level with the main focus on security, education and health in all regions of the country.

He explained that, “the strategy is to be able to cover a minimum of 5,000 users in every district… so we create a billion dollar company and the whole country is moved to digitalization to 5G.”

The Ghana Smart Cities project is a US$300 million collaboration between Celltel Networks and the Chinese government’s international cooperation company, CEIEC which has been designed to provide affordable nationwide Wi-Fi network in collaboration with local government institutions and other strategic and relevant government agencies

Another cause of the problems the country is facing is that the youth are hindered from exploring their potential and aspirations.

He suggested that the elderly in the country should accept that their generation is past and allow the young ones to exhibit their capabilities.

"During my life, I’ve never seen any government do anything in Ghana. No government until today has done something. So, Ghana’s biggest problem to date is not a problem. We need to accept where we are and allow the young generation to move on."

As a result, most young Ghanaians who flee from the country to other countries emerge successful as they become business owners. He thinks the only way to succeed in Ghana is through politics.

Dr Kludjeson also mentioned that African laws do not recognise equity, thereby making Ghanaians have equity issues, which is another reason the country is faced with problems.

For this purpose, he has been advocating for leaders in government and other stakeholders to support the fight for equity for Ghanaians during his administration as the former AGI president.

He thus pleaded with politicians, especially President Akufo-Addo and his parliamentarians, to unite and initiate new policies to gain equity for the citizens.

He also believes that the country’s unlimited challenges are due to how leaders prioritise relevance and the perception of Ghanaians about politics.

The business mogul said that his confidence in Ghana’s growth will begin after 2025. This is because he thinks the political mindset of Ghanaians will change after that year.

"In 2025, the old mindset would have been gone. The mindset for the transformation of the country is beginning now. Ghana’s politics will change because we created this one," he postulated.