A professor at the University of Ghana Business School, Godfred Bokpin has said that the service sector of Ghana’s economy is characterized by imports.
This makes the quality in the sector lacking, he said.
Speaking at the 3Business Economic Sustainability Summit held in Accra on Tuesday, April 4, Prof Bokpin said “The answer is no. Typically, if you look at the economic transformation when a country begins from agriculture and suddenly service is leading it tells you that that economy is matured so it has gone through that process but in the case of Ghana we started off agriculture being the leading contributor to the GDP and then we skipped industry, that is what the data is telling us and then we jumped straight to service.
“That service sector is actually not quality service, it is the sector that is driven by retail and wholesale, largely import.
“Once your service sector is leading particularly in the area of retail and wholesale, once your industry isn’t doing well then it means the bulk of what is happening is going to be imported, typically once you import, you are important unemployment.”
He further indicated that “Ghana, from independence, was known for agriculture but today Ghana is not known for agriculture. Ghana is known for service but the question is, is Ghana really a service-based economy?