Renowned Ghanaian businessman, Dr. Kofi Amoah is suggesting a tripartite arrangement between the public sector, academia and industry to create what he terms, ‘a gigantic machinery for job and wealth creation’. He says the machinery should be the vehicle through which the country can add value to its natural resources. Dr. Amoah also known as Citizen Kofi explained that this can be achieved by a deliberate policy of using research information from higher institutions of learning to feed industrial processing. Citizen Kofi was addressing students at the KNUST on the topic: “Higher Education; how can it be made relevant to the socio-economic development of Ghana”. He said “your natural resources can and should be the bedrock to jumpstart economic development. But it can only do that if you understand how to create higher value from the natural resources. “One ounce of raw gold will fetch you approximately 1,500 dollars on the New York Stock Exchange. That same ounce of gold can be used to produce 60,000 dollars worth of jewelry.” Dr. Amoah bemoaned the situation where we sell the raw materials and allow other countries to acquire the value chain that creates the higher value. He stressed the need to process and add value to products such as gold so as to create employment for chemists, design artists, packaging and marketing specialists. Story by: Kofi Adu Domfe/Luv FM/Ghana