By Eric Appah Marfo
Accra, June 30, GNA — Professor Wisdom Akpalu, Dean, School of Research and Graduate Studies, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), has reiterated the call on the Government to ensure sustainable use of natural resources.
“We should not just go to town spending those (natural resource) monies, but invest them in other forms of capital. Let’s spend them on education, roads, hospitals and other things that can lead us to produce more goods and services rather than consuming them,” he said.
Prof Akpalu gave the advice on Thursday during an Inaugural Lecture organised by GIMPA in Accra.
He spoke on the topic: “The Complexities of Managing Natural Resources in Developing Countries”.
The Professor observed that Africa was blessed with highly valuable natural resources, yet, bedevilled with poverty and destitution.
He attributed the problem to ignorance or lack of scientific information regarding the management of natural resources.
Prof Akpalu said the Continent was also faced with corruption and political expediency, and weak bargaining position of leaders with foreign investors over natural resources.
He said renewable resources could be sustained by ensuring that the rate of extraction did not exceed the capacity of the resource to replenish itself.
“We can achieve sustainability through our knowledge of the stock and bioregions of the resource, interaction between the resource and its environment, diversity of the species and interactions among them, reproductive capacity of the resource, relationship between the effort deployed and the harvest or catch.”
He said 60 per cent of wild fish stocks in Africa were fully exploited while 30 per cent were over-exploited.
Prof Akpalu said Africa lost over US$38 billion of fishery capital from 2003 to 2008 due to over fishing and the presence of too many fishing vessels.
He said Africa also lost US$2.3billion a year to Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing whilst Ghana lost over US$200 million every year due to irresponsible fishing practices.
Prof Akpalu, therefore, advised Government and stakeholders to demonstrate strong commitment to enforce regulations over the extraction and management of natural resources.
He also urged them to promote domestic investment in resource extraction for profits to be retained in the country and not go to foreign investors.
GNA