By Jibril Abdul Mumuni
Accra, July 22, GNA– Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, has accused successive governments of neglecting the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and other key research institutions.
He said the neglect of CSIR and other research institutions in Ghana is a profound misunderstanding of the role of science in national development
Rresearch institutions that should be at the forefront of developing solutions to the country’s socio-economic challenges had instead been left to struggle for survival under inadequate state funding, he lamented.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng made the remarks while delivering a lecture in honour of the late President John Evans Atta Mills.
He highlighted what he described as Ghana’s missed opportunities in science, technology and innovation-driven development.
The annual lecture celebrates the late President John Evans Atta Mills, who died on July 24, 2012, at the 37 Military Hospital.
The renowned heart surgeon and former minister said countries that successfully transformed their economies did so through consistent investments in research, innovation and industrial development.
However, he said in the case of Ghana, the country had failed to sustain support for institutions established to drive scientific progress.
According to him, institutions such as CSIR and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, which were expected to serve as engines of technological transformation, had been compelled by successive governments to generate their own revenue to maintain operations.
“CSIR, Atomic Energy, institutions that should be the engines of Ghana’s technological transformation, have been instructed by successive governments to commercialise their activities simply to keep their doors open,” he said.
The budget trend reflects Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s concerns.
Ministry of Finance data show that over the past six years, government subvention to CSIR and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission has largely covered only Compensation of Employees. Funding for Goods and Services and Capital Expenditure, which pay for research, equipment and fieldwork, has remained minimal and often under-released.
Directors of CSIR institutes have raised similar alarms in 2025, with the CSIR Soil Research Institute stating it receives “zero funding of our research” from government, and that all field and laboratory work is now donor-dependent.
At GAEC, approved budgets between 2020 and 2022 ranged from GH¢4.3 million to GH¢9.1 million for salaries, GH¢3 million to GH¢5 million for Goods and Services, and GH¢1 million to GH¢4 million for capital projects. However, releases were frequently below the approved figures.
In 2022, the Goods and Services allocation was revised down by 30%. The pattern has forced both CSIR and GAEC to rely heavily on Internally Generated Funds, donor projects, and commercial
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng noted that no country had achieved technological advancement by forcing public research institutions to fund themselves through commercial activities.
“Successful countries fund their research institutions generously and hold them accountable for outcomes, not for revenue. Ghana is asking its scientists to be entrepreneurs first and researchers second, and then wonders why there is no indigenous technological breakthrough to show for it,” he stated.
The former minister said Ghana’s development challenges could partly be traced to the abandonment of long-term national strategies in favour of politically branded programmes that often ended with changes in government.
He recalled that Ghana’s industrialisation efforts in the early post-independence period were designed to build scientific and manufacturing capacity through collaboration among CSIR, the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and universities.
However, many of those initiatives were discontinued before they could yield significant results.
Had successive governments built upon those policies, he said, Ghana could have remained on a development path similar to countries such as South Korea and Malaysia.
The countries mentioned were at comparable levels of development in the 1960s but have since emerged as industrialised economies.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng also expressed concern about the state of the country’s research and higher educational institutions.
He said that inadequate budgetary support had forced many universities to rely heavily on student fees, while research institutions increasingly depended on commercial activities for survival.
He argued that science and technology institutions should occupy a central place in national planning rather than being treated as peripheral entities expected to generate their own operational resources.
The former minister warned that failure to adequately support research institutions would continue to fuel brain drain, weaken Ghana’s innovation ecosystem and limit the country’s ability to achieve sustainable economic transformation.
GNA
Reporter: Jibril Abdul Mumuni
[email protected]
Edited by Samuel Osei-Frempong