Mashudu Ankiilu Kunateh
16 November 2009
The Country Director of the Global Management Challenge (GMC), Mr. Arnold Parker has disclosed that the deindustrialization of Ghana's economy, caused by the discovery of natural resources depreciated the cedi against the Dollar, Pound Sterling and the Euro.
According to him, "this makes locally manufactured goods less competitive with other nations, increasing imports and decreasing exports. He told The Chronicle in an interview in Accra over the weekend that all the above mentioned are symptoms of the Dutch disease, which are currently facing the country.
The Dutch disease is an economic concept that tries to explain the apparent relationship between the exploitation of natural resources and a decline in the manufacturing sector, combined with moral fallout.
Indeed, the theory is that an increase in revenues from natural resources will deindustriliase a nation's economy by raising the exchange rate, which makes the manufacturing sector less competitive and public services entangled with business interests.
This theory originated from the Netherlands in the 1970s when the country struck oil. With the commercial production of oil in large quantities next year and beyond, Mr. Parker appealed to the government not to concentrate solely on the oil and gas sector, but rather use the oil wealth to develop the other sectors of the Ghanaian economy.
Speaking at a Global Management Challenge seminar, he observed that for Ghana to achieve a middle-income status by 2020, businesses need to be in partnership, adding that "Sole proprietorship ways of running business is not the best".
He advised people who want to undertake a partnership or joint venture businesses to document and legalise the deals in order to avoid acrimonies in future. Touching on the GMC, the Country Director revealed that Ghana is the first African country to participate in the competition.
The GMC is a strategic management competition in which each team runs a virtual company with the objective of gaining the highest company share price on a simulated Stock Exchange. The teams can be made up of students in tertiary institutions, company employees, management trainees and or individuals desirous of starting entrepreneurial ventures.
Each team should have between three to five persons. A team, once formed, will register for the competition by filling an online form. Once the application is received and approved, the team leader will be notified by email, given a username and password to the completion site, and the team will then be officially recognized as the management team for a company. The team leader is expected to assign a division of the company to each of the team members to manage.
In Ghana, about 30 teams are participating in the global competition. A team which emerges as the first in the Ghana Edition, will receive a package of GH¢20,000 in addition to GH¢5,000 cash, a set of business books, a plaque, a certificate of participation and full sponsorship to the global finals.
While, the second team will take home a GH¢2,000 cash, a set of business books, a plaque and certificate of participation, the third winning team would also receive a cash of GH¢2,000, a set of business books, a plaque and certificate of participation.
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