A development Economist, Nana Oforiwaa Koranteng says government should shun piecemeal solutions to the ailing economy and rather take a comprehensive step to dealing with it.

According to her, the pitiable state in which the country's economy finds itself calls for a strategic management which will provide the benchmark for a sound growth instead of the fly-by-night policies.

She criticised a recent announcement indicating government decision to supply school children with free footwear, as one of such unsustainable policies. 

Speaking Monday on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, the Management and Evaluation expert noted that: "We did a similar thing; [to] take [school] children from under trees and we built classrooms for them [but] where are the teachers?"  

"This country says that we want to do agriculture; you go out there and find out how many extension agents we have...we don't have them. And even if we have them; they were trained before Adam was born. So they probably do not even know the latest things and government not is pumping money into increasing the capacity of extension delivery but we are buying tractors."

She therefore suggested it is time the leaders of the country "start looking at strategic management of the economy rather than the band-aid solutions.

"They are not helping us," she told Kojo Yankson, host of the programme.

              

Branding Ghana

Contributing to the discussion, financial analyst Sydney Casely-Hayford said government must focus on providing fundamental infrastructure - electricity, water, roads and electronic propagation - to attract investors into the country.

Mr. Casely-Hayford also suggested the creation of "simple conceptual things" to brand Ghana -centre of the world -as the hub of doing business in the West African sub region. This he noted can boost confidence in foreigners that they can come and do business without risking their capital.

"Ghana has to start thinking that if we are going to carry on, we have to go outside the borders of Ghana. There is no way you can manage a business unless it is something like 'charle wote' (bathroom slippers). Everybody wants it so you can make a decent living selling 'charle wote' in Ghana and even beyond that, you can sell 'charle wote' out of the borders of Ghana," he noted.