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A member of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords, Rt. Hon. Paul Boateng, has urged leaders of Ghana’s political movement to make positive strides in breaking the current cycle of dependence on external aid to increase development.

Lord Paul Boateng made the call while addressing participants at the 2024 Annual leadership lecture at the Kofi Ohene-Konadu Auditorium at the University of Professional Studies in Accra on Tuesday June 18, 2024.

His assertion comes after President Akufo-Addo underscored the need for Africa to wean itself off external aid.

Rt. Hon. Paul Boateng said, “Break the vicious cycle of dependence on external aid. Who here does not remember the moment His Excellency the President [Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo] stood next to the president of France [Emmanuel] Macron and went viral and made the point about the need for us to cease to have to rely on external aid if we are to break that vicious cycle of dependence on external aid and those great powers who have fed and continue to feed on Africa’s resources and whose activities with their willing collaborators hold Africa down in an impoverished and conflicted posture?”

According to him, Ghana is wallowing in poverty due to the culture of overly depending on external aid for financial freedom.

He added that, it is disappointing for a social media user to rate high a Dutch passport over a Ghanaian PhD holder.

He said, “We are held down in an impoverished and conflicted posture by our dependence on external aid and the great powers, and it is something terrible when a statement on the internet that a Dutch Passport is worth more than a Ghanaian PhD.

“It is something terrible when that goes viral on the internet. We cannot allow it to be so and leadership must be at the heart of our response.”