The executive chairman for AB & David law firm, David Ofosu Dorte, has refuted the notion that the country’s current state of underdevelopment is due to the fact that we were once colonized.

Mr. Dorte described this as a historical myth that needs to be broken if we want to develop as a nation.

“Being a colony cannot be a reason for our underdevelopment” he told host Winston Amoah on Joy FM‘s Super Morning Show on Thursday, April 14, 2022.

The Corporate Lawyer who has over 20 years experience working in both the public and private sectors, spoke about the development progress of Ghana. In an intellectual and thought-provoking conversation, Mr. Dorte proffered four (4) recommendations that can cause Ghana to develop.

In addition to the need to disabuse our minds of the historical myth of colonization, Mr. Dorte spoke about ‘the contemporary justification of our non-performance as a country.

He emphasized that we are very quick to blame our non-performance on the least stress in the international community or the least policy by the government that we feel is not palatable.

Also, he advised the government to stop using false yardsticks to measure progress, “we have a lot of false yardsticks all over, for example, we believe that simply because our GDP is growing that means we are growing, that is not true” he said.

Explaining that comment, he emphasized that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) also includes the amount of money exiting the economy, so it doesn’t actually tell you what the indigenes are gaining, therefore measuring growth based on the Gross National Product (GNP) shows the actual growth rate of the country.

“So, much as I would like us to continue using GDP, we need to start measuring GNP and pronouncing it more and more”, he added.

Finally, he advised that we debunk the belief that only Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) are the way to drive investment in the country. He said, promoting local investment is even a faster way to drive development, therefore the need for a situation where the government can drive a sense of growth in the private sector.

Mr. Dorte further encouraged private sector players to focus on having little ownership in several businesses rather than having greater ownership in just one business.

“We need to have a situation where the government drives a sense of growth in the public sector so that the private sector would cure that culture of wanting to own 100% of 1, instead of 10% of 100,“ he added.