The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a think tank, will host academics, social change activists and thought leaders at its 11th Leadership Dialogue Series (LDS11) on Tuesday, September 6, 2022.

The annual Leadership Dialogue Series is the flagship civic education platform of the CSJ that aims to nurture mass political participation and patriotic values through intellectually stimulating discussions with prominent national leaders.

The latest event is under the theme: "Transforming Ghana's Economy – Scape Goats, Root Causes & Hard Choices".

The event on Tuesday will seek to diagnose the root causes of Ghana's chronic economic challenges and discuss political and regulatory perspectives in managing Ghana's economy.

The series would also recommend tough decisions that government and citizens must take and implement in the short and long term to spur Ghana's economic transformation.

The LDS 11, conceptualised and presented as a joint offering with Frederich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a German NGO, uses a blended format with limited in-person and mass virtual participation.

Commenting on Tuesday's event, Dr Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, Executive Director of the Centre for Social Justice, said: "We plan to host 10 to 15 people at the Chartered Institute of Banks, East Legon in Accra, complemented by a live transmission of the event on CSJ's Zoom & Facebook platforms and collaborating with CSJ's media partners for television and social media broadcast."

Media partners are Woezor TV, Citi TV, Citi FM, and the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ).

The LDS 11, according to Dr Sodzi-Tettey, would be moderated by Dr Priscilla Twumasi-Baffuor, an economist and senior lecturer at the University of Ghana, from 4:30 pm GMT.

Speakers at Tuesday's event include Professor John Gatsi, Professor of Finance, Chartered Economist and Barrister at the University of Cape Coast; Mrs Grace Osabutey, Minister of Finance; and Isaac Adongo, Deputy Ranking Member, NDC, Finance Committee of Ghana's Parliament.

"CSJ looks forward to partnering with FES on this important national conversation and to making far reaching recommendations, which if implemented, will transform Ghana's economy", Sodzi-Tettey stated.

The event is timely as Ghana battles an economic crisis. A debt-to-GDP ratio of 78%, a June 2022 inflation rate of 29.8%, the highest since December 2003, and a weakening currency currently performing at USD1 to over GHS 8.00 compared to USD1 to GHS 4.2 in December 2016 makes the discussion at the LDS 11 critical.

Amid these economic crises, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has outlined four root causes: the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, the banking and financial sector clean-up, and excess energy capacity payments through contracts entered by the government of President John Dramani Mahama.

Other economic and finance experts have downplayed these reasons adduced by the Vice President, fingering the longstanding structural flaws of Ghana's economy as the more fundamental issue worth focusing on to place the economy on the path of true transformation and resilience, spur consistent growth and avert this cyclical return to the IMF.

Speakers at the LDS11 will tackle issues such as boosting Ghana's export trade, introducing greater efficiency and better management of the government's social interventions and the public sector wage bill, and avoiding waste and revenue leakages through corruption and mind-boggling judgment debts.