Former Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Charles Soludo has challenged economists to properly communicate their findings to policymakers in order to realize positive results for the economy.
He says the findings of economists presented to policymakers are often left unattended to because of poor presentation on the part of economists.
Speaking at the K.B Amissah Arthur Economic Forum, Mr Charles Soludo said economists must be able to breakdown their findings to policymakers.
“Economists easily agree on the goals of policy but the choice of the instrument quickly takes us to the domain of welfare economics with distribution consequences and hence with winners and losers. Politics as an authoritative of value interferes with the choice of the policy instrument. In the end, you can’t divorce politics from public or economic policy.”
Meanwhile, Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mohammed Ibn Chambas said the forum is one that must be emulated to serve as a channel for the dissemination of knowledge.
He also praised the efforts of the Amissah- Arthur family and the Economics Department at the University of Ghana for organizing a forum of the sort.
The forum
The Economic Forum was to mark the first anniversary of the demise of Ghana’s Vice President, Dr. Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.
It was also to celebrate the achievements of the former statesman and tout his credentials in finance and economics towards the country’s development.
Mr. Amissah-Arthur died in 2018 at 67 after he collapsed at the Airforce Gym in Accra during a workout session.
From 1983 to 1986, Amissah-Arthur served as a special assistant to the Secretary of Finance and Economic Planning, Kwesi Botchwey under the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) government.
He was appointed as Governor of the Bank of Ghana in October 2009 by then-President John Atta Mills; a position he held until August 6, 2012, when he became Vice-President of Ghana following the death of Atta Mills.
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