Accra: The head of Policy Planning and Monitoring Team at the Presidency, Dr. Tony Aidoo has blamed Ghana's poor ratings in some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) partly on what he says are unfair global structures. A new report on the MDGs reveals Ghana may not be able to reduce child mortality or improve maternal health. The report however shows clear signs of Ghana inching close to achieving its poverty eradication targets.

Describing the report as "evoking mixed feelings" Dr Aidoo told Joy News' Bernard Saibu that governments in Third World countries are "constrained by the conditions set by so-called development partners."

He said the time has come for developing countries to break the dogma of capitalism and to adopt new ways of addressing our problems. "It is about time we looked inward and see that, look, we cannot adopt a doctrine, a capitalist path to development in our part of the world," he said.

Asked what the government will be doing to meet the challenges on sanitation and child mortality, Dr. Aidoo was somewhat philosophical, saying "We must change the fundamentals of our economy. If you are making a bad soup and from the beginning the soup taste very bad, adding more ingredients means it is going to taste even worse."

He was worried that even if the country achieves the targets spelt out under the MDGs, it will have a major problem sustaining them because of the major challenges of capitalism.

Until 2009 when the Mills administration took over, Dr. Aidoo said the country had failed to meet most of the MDG targets "but over the past two years we have seen some improvement and that speaks for the renewed effort the present government to dedicate most government policies and projects to the achievement of the indicators.

Meanwhile, Mr. P.V. Obeng, Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission also told JOY News the report is a wake-up call to the government to double efforts at achieving the MDG targets.