Bernard Osei-Tutu, Financial Analyst and CEO of Dusk Capital
Financial Analyst, Bernard Osei-Tutu, has described the government’s decision to establish Development Bank Ghana as a misplaced priority.
According to Mr Osei-Tutu, the government could have focused its attention on infrastructure development, especially in the health sector, rather than creating a national bank.
This comes as the President Akufo-Addo-led government, last week, secured a 170-million-euro facility from the European Investment Bank to establish DBG.
This development has been greeted with mixed feelings with some financial watchers arguing that the country would be riddled with more debt.
Speaking in an interview with Class Business’ Pious Kojo Backah, Dusk Capital CEO Mr Osei-Tutu said the funds secured could have been invested in the health sector.
He said: “As a developing country, we’ve lots of priorities to start with – priorities of poor health care, priorities of bad roads, priorities of education and a whole lot of other things so for me, on the scale of priorities, I don’t think the establishment of a development bank at this point in time should be our priority”.
“We are a country that has struggled a lot, especially coming out of coronavirus, and want to stand on its feet; I don’t support this school of thought”, he argued.
He continued: “One issue that has been critical and talked about and the government has been criticized [for] is our health care [system]”.
“We have one of the poorest health care systems, and trust me, if I make money today or I’m doing well in my business and I get sick and I’m unable to get the right medical care that I need, I will die tomorrow.
“So, no matter what you put in to make the economy bounce back, you can’t revive life as the president himself said; so, if you push me, I will say this is not a priority, especially considering the fact that there’s a lot of gaps in our health care delivery [system]”.
“I’ll wish more focus would have gone into health rather than the establishment of a development bank.”