Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has argued that the country’s reliance on state-dominated industry has weakened the entrepreneurial spirit needed for sustainable wealth creation.
Speaking yesterday at the Legacy Dialogue Series organised by the Design and Technology Institute (DTI), Mr. Kufuor said the transition from the Gold Coast to Ghana was marked by a fundamental misunderstanding of how economies grow.
He stressed that government should not be the primary industrial risk-taker, adding that the early Ghanaian state attempted to play a role it was never designed for.
According to him, this approach systematically crowded out individuals whose initiative could have supported the growth of a resilient private-sector-driven economy.
“Gold Coast that became Ghana insisted on the state taking the risk for growing industry and keeping the private sector. We took that risk taker out of growing our economy,” he stated.
Mr. Kufuor argued that replacing entrepreneurial drive with rigid bureaucracy results in inefficiency rather than innovation.
Reflecting on the era of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), he said the proliferation of state enterprises left little room for the private sector to thrive, adding that this approach did not merely reflect oversight but actively weakened emerging private businesses.
“So it was State Farm, state this, and state that, leaving out the private sector. These early private ventures were all destroyed by the state because it seems like the state had not appreciated the necessity for the private sector to cooperate with the state to generate wealth,” he said.
He noted that the outcome was an economy that prioritised state control over wealth creation, ultimately slowing growth and limiting economic expansion.
Drawing on the philosophy of his New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration between 2001 and 2009, Mr. Kufuor said his pursuit of a “Golden Age of Business” was a deliberate attempt to correct these historical distortions.
He emphasised that his government sought to restore private sector confidence as the engine of national development.
“I thought I should emphasise the necessity to bring back business to usher in the golden age of business,” he told policymakers and entrepreneurs.
His remarks come at a time when the country’s economic policy discourse continues to focus on private-sector-led recovery amid debt challenges.
The Legacy Dialogue Series, which brought together policymakers and entrepreneurs, aimed at bridging historical experience with current policy direction.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah
