The former president of the Ghana Institute of Engineers (GIE), Dr. Kwame Boakye has called on Ghanaians to embrace Science, Technology, Engineering and Innovation (STEI) saying it is key to the country’s socioeconomic development.
According to him, the government can formulate all manner of policies and programmes but without systematic effort to harness opportunities available in STEI, “Ghana is going nowhere” in terms of the elevation of her people from poverty, disease and environmental degradation.
To him, STEI for decades has been the secret driving the Asia Tigers to compete with world economies like the United States.
“We have become a beggar nation, addicted to donation. We are unable to execute without the so-called development partners- political correct way of depriving our independence. We can’t implement our national budget without their contribution. We can’t run our institutions by ourselves without their help.
“Even elections which lie in the core of exercising our franchise must be partially funded by these partners. This should be a big concern to us,” he bemoaned.
Dr. Boakye made the observation at the 11th Graduation of Accra Institute of Technology (AIT) over the weekend in Accra.
Deeply concerned about the country’s inability to affectively harness the opportunities provided by STEI, he said “No matter the virtues of our development, STEI are the key drivers of development because they underpin socioeconomic advancements and improvements in the health system, education and infrastructure.”
He thus urged all engineers to come together as a group to draw a roadmap to ensure the right things are done.
He further called on the government to reach out to STEI experts in leadership position to help address underdevelopment of the country.
On his part, Professor Clement K. Dzidonu, president of AIT said the graduation ceremony witnessed five persons graduating with Doctor of philosophy (PhDs), another five as PhD Candidates and two others obtaining Masters in Computer Science (MSc), Engineering.
Also, 153 graduands from AIT’s main campus were awarded various degrees in Accounting, Business Administration, Computer Science, Education Administration, Hospitality, Information Technology, Network Computing and Multimedia Communication with 26 people obtaining first class honors, 40, second class, upper division and 87 persons also obtaining second, lower division.
Another 61 graduands from the institute’s Open University Malaysia, were also honored with Bachelor degrees at the event.
