Co-founder of defunct UT Bank, Prince Kofi Amoabeng says he would recommend for everyone to spend some time serving with the military.

Using himself as an example, he touted the influence military training and discipline has had on his success as a businessman and in his personal life especially.

Speaking on JoyPrime’s The Big Interview on Prime Morning, he stated that had it not been for the discipline instilled in him during his service with the military, he would have turned out badly.

He explained that the discipline, a much needed trait in leadership, is what is lacking in most young business people and thus causing the decline in their companies.

According to him, an easy way to resolve this issue is to have young people serve in the military for their National Service.

But describing the proposal as simply idealistic, he said Ghana’s finances will not be able to maintain such a programme.

“Someone asked me the other time and said would you advocate that the National Service be with the military? And I said ideally yes, but the way we handle institutions is not easy.

“If you have free SHS which is really something which everyone should desire, I mean we’re not running it perfectly, so if you’re talking about people finishing university or finishing SHS going to the military, I mean really the budget should be huge and we have too many problems to think about. So it’s ideal but it’s not realistic. But it’s good for everyone to taste a bit of military discipline,” he said.

He added that “I don’t think with the way we’re running the economy, we can do that. We won’t have the funds, it’ll be too much of a burden and there are too many people.

“I mean if you look at people looking for jobs now, you’re talking how many people? They’ve all finished school and they want something to do. We can’t put all of them through the military. Maybe we can start from somewhere, that’s for the government to decide.”

Captain Prince Kofi Amoabeng has recently launched his memoir “The UT Story: Humble Beginnings” which takes a dive into his personal life and his journey to building the UT empire.