Invest GHs80m Cathedral budget on Research- Hon Terlabi tells Govt
The Member of parliament (MP) for Lower Manya Krobo Constituency, Hon Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi has urged government to rather use the GHS80 million budgetary allocation for the construction of the National Cathedral for the work of Council for Scientific and Industrial research ( CSIR ) to enhance development of the country.
According to him, the CSIR that suppose to conduct research for new discovery on how the nation could harness it resources to withstand the emerging climate change is being under resourced.
Hon Terlabi made the call when he took his turn to contribute on the budget estimates for the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, on the floor of parliament on Monday, December 19,2022.
He said despite the invaluable role of CSIR, government has not paid special attention to the needs of the council.
The MP said due to the lack of resource, students or graduates that are sent to the CSIR has nothing to learn and the country keep on losing the necessary development .
Mr Terlabi noted that, the natural resources in the country alone are not enough to develop as a nation without support from institutions involved in research, as in developed countries.
For him, it is high time the nation prioritize what to use to enhance the development of the country, particularly looking at how best to invest in research.
He observed how countries like Japan and Germany, which do not have the natural resources Ghana boosts of, are doing better because of research.
“We have the people to do the research. The CSIR is like a middle field player in football team. So when we resources CSIR, it will provide for all other institutions. But the worse of all is that, they cannot even pay their Electricity Bills,” he added.
“So Mr Speaker, the budget of the 80 million cedis for the Cathedral project, we should rather put such an amount of money to equip CSIR so they can do good research and get better results that can lead to better applications to enhance the development of the country”, he appealed.
He said research could bring in new seedlings and other food products that could stand climate change and create jobs as well.
Parliament has approved GHS615,430,060, for the Ministry of Environment , Science ,Technology and Innovation for the year 2023.
Source: expressnewsghana.com
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