The World Bank Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) report, on Tuesday said Ghana's key infrastructure services were not only short in supply but were characterized by poor quality and unreliable, leading to serious implications for growth. According to the report, Ghana's overall spending on infrastructure needed to be doubled to close severe infrastructure gaps as well as help sustain rapid economic growth. Mr. Zeljko Bogetic, Task Team Manager of CEM said poor infrastructure services substantially increases the cost of doing business and hampered Ghana's prospects to attract investment and its ambitions to become a regional hub in West Africa. He mentioned the energy, water and sanitation, Information Communication Technology and Telecommunications sectors as those that were seriously characterized by poor qualities. Mr. Bogetic was presenting a report on "Infrastructure for Accelerated Growth in Ghana: Needs and Challenges" at a four-day forum organised by the World Bank and the Government of Ghana. It was on the theme, "Meeting the Challenge of Accelerated and Shared Growth in Ghana - Country Economic Memorandum Dissemination." Mr Bogetic said Ghana has to tailor expenditure to the sectors that were in most need and to improve the performance of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), through which the bulk of the infrastructure expenditure was channeled. "To date, the transport sector has attracted the lion's share of the expenditures. The energy, water and sanitation crises call for more attention to be devoted to these crucial sectors," he said.Mr Bogetic said there was also a strong divide between rural and urban areas in terms of infrastructure stock, quantity and quality of service. He said this divide was particularly striking, not only across regions but also at the district and sub-district levels. "While poverty measures are much higher in the Northern, Upper Eastern, and Upper Western regions, there are several pockets of poverty in the forest areas of the country - Western, Brong Ahafo, and Ashanti regions, as well as in the costal areas - Central and Volta regions," he said. Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, Deputy Governor, Bank of Ghana said the huge sums of money that were used to subsidise petroleum products in the past made it impossible for government to provide much needed infrastructure elsewhere. He said although government was pumping in money to cushion the public in that area, the country was at the same time losing investments in that area and commended the government for taking such a bold step to deregulate the petroleum sector. He, therefore, stressed the need to look critically for energy policy and issues on tariffs to entice private sector investment.Source: GNA