The Founder and General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensa Otabil, has attributed the country’s economic woes to the inability of its leaders and citizenry to think and adapt to changing trends in the world.
He observed that even though the world had changed over the years, Ghana had only been obedient to the past rules of engagement, which had contributed to its current state of underdevelopment.
Such anomaly, Pastor Otabil said, needed to be addressed through an absolute change in attitude, policies and systems for the progress of the country.
“By 1928, Ghana was the leading exporter of cocoa in the world, so the colonial master decided to make cocoa export the backbone of our economy, and that was over 100 years ago. Today, we are still using the same old procedure of exporting raw cocoa beans instead of adding value to our produce to meet the trend of time. We are still obedient to the colonial master,” Pastor Otabil said.
He was speaking at a national convocation of the Springboard Road Show in Accra last Saturday.
The event, on the theme: “Agenda 2027,” attracted large audience to the National Theatre in Accra. It was organised by Legacy and Legacy, a human capital development firm, with support from other corporate institutions.
It was aimed at exposing participants to their potentials and guiding them to exploit it to their personal and societal advantage.
This year’s event marked the 11th anniversary of the Roadshow. Participants included students from second-cycle and tertiary schools and young entrepreneurs.
Change
Pastor Otabil said Ghanaians and Africans in general had refused to evolve with new changes but were rather focussing on past achievements.
He noted that the present condition in the country would remain the same until there was a change in the mindset of Ghanaians, beginning with its leaders.
The change in attitude, he said, required that the country put behind old ways of doing things and adjusted to the current trends in order to grow and compete with advanced countries.
The general overseer also called on policy makers to abandon their comfort and conventional and traditional methods of doing things.
“When the game changes, you need to change along; until you are able to do that, you will always be behind. As Africans, we have to learn and adapt quickly when the rules change,” he further advised.
Critical plans
The Executive Director of the Salt and Light Ministry, Ms Joyce Aryee, asked the participants to critically examine and plan their lives to be successful.
According to her, planning without action was futile, and action without planning was obviously fatal.
“Planning goes with a certain mindset to make sure that your plan gets delivered at the stipulated period. Usually, when you fly in an aircraft to Accra, you will see a jungle of houses scattered around but this is not the situation in other advanced countries,” she said.
Ms Aryee added, “Favourable and unfavourable things that have happened in an individual’s lives may have been dependent on some of the choices that have been made in the past and so if you can appreciate how history has had to influence your future, you will make the right choices.”
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