{"id":93659,"date":"2025-09-11T16:59:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93659"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:59:15","slug":"incompetence-not-corruption-is-africas-biggest-challenge-paul-adom-otchere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93659","title":{"rendered":"Incompetence, not corruption, is Africa\u2019s biggest challenge \u2013 Paul Adom-Otchere"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited and General Manager of Metro TV, Paul Adom-Otchere, has argued that incompetence, rather than corruption, is the more pressing issue holding back Africa\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

Speaking on JoyNews\u2019 The Pulse Show<\/strong><\/em>, Adom-Otchere challenged what he described as an entrenched but misguided public perception.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been told all the time that the bigger problem is corruption. I beg to differ,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you engage with the literature well, you will find out that incompetence is a bigger problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that incompetence is easier to identify and measure compared to corruption, which is often difficult to prove without political bias or legal findings. According to him, Africa\u2019s persistent underdevelopment is driven more by poor management, weak institutional capacity, and ill-informed decision-making than by theft alone.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on Ghana\u2019s economic history, Adom-Otchere recalled how the country struggled with poverty and debt, noting key moments such as Ghana\u2019s classification as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

\u201cGhana was said to be a poor country in 1995. In 1998, Ghana was a poor country, and in 2001, Ghana was a HIPC country,\u201d he recounted.<\/p>\n

To illustrate his point, the controversial TV host cited a bank established in Ghana in 2006, which, despite operating in what was labelled a \u201cpoor country,\u201d has since become massively profitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the poor country of Ghana, the bank has been profitable,\u201d he observed. \u201cSo what really is the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

Adom-Otchere also questioned how corruption is defined and identified in the public sphere, arguing that political narratives often shape perceptions rather than hard evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have been told that your problem has nothing to do with competence, so we don\u2019t even look there,\u201d he said. \u201cOur problem is corruption. But how do we know somebody stole money? We were told by the politician that somebody stole money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Incompetence,Former Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited and General Manager of Metro TV, Paul Adom-Otchere, has argued that incompetence, not corruption, is the more pressing issue undermining Africa\u2019s development, challenging a long-held public narrative across the continent.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1972,1900,8355,1883,4238,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-hp-news-2","category-incompetence","category-national","category-paul-adom-otchere","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}