Kumasi, Ashanti Region, March 7, 2018//-Executive Director of the National Population Council (NPC), Dr. Leticia Adelaide Appiah, has called on government to take pragmatic and concrete measures to help slow down the spat of population growth in the country.
According to her, the country’s current 2.5% population growth rate brought about a huge national economic burden and the decline of quality of life for the people.
Dr. Appiah made the call at a day’s workshop which was organized by the NPC for the students and staff of the Department of Public Health, KNUST in Kumasi.
The workshop was dubbed; ‘Rapid population growth rate and the hidden socio-economic burden, the Ghanaian context’, and it was aimed at sensitizing the students on the effect of rapid population growth on the Ghanaian economy and to find a way to control it.
The growth rate for any country to improve, she said, is 2% and this current growth rate of 2.5% tells us that, Ghana’s population will double in 28 years to come, which is shorter than that of the useful life span of most of its natural resources, indicating that, the country is on the verge of developmental deficit.
She said” “One problem of our country is that, government does not synchronize its policies and until that issue is addressed, we will still face problems of improving the standards of life as a nation.”
Dr Appiah emphasized that, government needs to synchronize its policies to reflect on the country’s population growth.
Adding that, NPC has in the past attributed the reduction in services and income support for the poor, crowded educational and health facilities, declining educational and health standards and reduced productivity, which is affecting competitiveness of industries, to the uncontrolled population growth rate in Ghana.
She however suggested that, the situation could only be curbed through the implementation of organized family planning programmes.
By Peter Osei Kojo
