The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) will today launch a new series of public roundtable discussions on the future of Ghana’s natural resources and the role they can play in securing sustainable national development.

The event is on the theme “Ghana Beyond the 17th IMF Bailout: Salvation in our natural resources?”.

The series would be launched with a keynote address by the immediate-past Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye, a distinguished scholar at the IEA.

Imperative

“Ghana is about to end our 17th entry into the International Monetary Fund (IMF) very soon.

It is imperative that at such a juncture, we should ask ourselves: Are we coming out now only to await the next entry? What can we do to avoid further entries to the IMF?

Can we exist as a nation without these perennial appeals for budgetary support and survive as a nation?” a statement issued in Accra said.

In this connection, it said it was imperative to ask, "What do we have and what can we depend upon?"

The Industrial Revolution, the knowledge economy propelled by ICT and robotics, has virtually passed us by.

What do we have to depend upon? 

The answer, it said, “rings out loudly: our natural resources, including gold, diamond, bauxite, manganese, lithium, oil, etc., endowed upon us by our Creator.”