Akwasi Addai
Akwasi Addai, a businessman, who is also known as ‘Odike,’ has complained about the high interest on Treasury bills in the country.
He said affluent people, who ought to create jobs for the unemployed youth, have resorted to treasury bills in order to obtain high returns.
According to Odike, the unfortunate development is a major contributing factor to the high unemployment rate in the country currently.
He therefore appealed to the current Akufo-Addo administration to introduce policies that would make investment in treasury bills unattractive.
“High rate treasury bills create unemployment,” Odike, who is also the founder and leader of United Progressive Party (UPP), told BUSINESS GUIDE in an interview.
He said the high returns that wealthy people accrue from investing in Treasury Bills do not encourage them to establish companies and employ people.
“Most of the rich men now invest in Treasury bills and they get huge amount of money as profit from doing so.”
“It is so beneficial to invest in Treasury bills that even churches have joined the crusade by buying treasury bills.
“I am not happy about this trend, since it does not encourage people to use their money to establish companies to offer employment to the people.
According to him, “In the Western world, more taxes are imposed on deposits in banks just to push the private sector to withdraw their money to invest.”
Odike noted that this does not help with the establishment of more businesses to create jobs.
From I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi