Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings is not the first Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) with a science background.
Two of her predecessors, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng and Dr Kwaku Afriyie, were medical doctors.
So why are scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) grinning from ear to ear and exchanging high-fives on account of her appointment?
Actually, it is not her appointment, per se; it is the words of hope coming out of her mouth.
Fact: though her predecessors made mention of CSIR at their vetting, the treatment was more or less like a footnote.
Zanetor has been the first to elevate CSIR into the news headlines.
Obviously an Apostle of Domestication, she made her intentions known at her vetting: that her regime is going to wage a relentless war on the plastic waste menace – with local solutions; she will end the situation in which the country is being buried alive under mountains of rubbish.
Part of the solution, she says, "is to channel some funding towards the CSIR, so that they can actually look into biological alternatives, for example hemp, for example cassava”.
It is not only CSIR scientists who are brimming with hope; their counterparts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also believe that Dr Agyeman-Rawlings “said their say” for them.
“We should start the issue of segregation of waste,” she preached, stressing its adoption from the household, school and community levels.
The EPA has been at waste segregation all their lives.
Why it has not become a culture, I am not told, but here is a minister who shares EPA’s faith.
Zanetor’s third declaration is one this country seldom talks about: poor motivation for scientific researchers, generally.
Not only that.
Hopefully, her plans also include the laughable paradox where, at the CSIR and other scientific institutions, governments have money only to pay scientists (paltry as it is) but not enough to fund the research itself.
Most scientific research is funded by development partners, European and American donors, as usual.
But talk is good. Question: where will the money come from?
Will she find Cabinet support when there are bread-and-butter issues that will translate into votes?
That is why, if Zanetor is reading this article, I ask one question: If Frimpong Boateng couldn’t get Akufo-Addo to increase investment in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), what makes her hopeful that a Mahama government would turn attention away from bread-and-butter issues to science?
Surest route
Yet, knowing what I know about science and technology for development, I am convinced that STI is, and remains, the surest route to national development since God created Adam; no government that has channelled funds into it has regretted the decision.
Kwame Nkrumah did and in the First Republic, we manufactured glass; we put together an atomic reactor for cheap electricity.
In 1960, South Korea was so poor that Kenya gave it a US$10,000 loan, along with relief food (as Ghana did to Guinea).
Fast forward to the 2000s, the tables have turned. In 2026, Kenya secured a U$83.8 million loan from South Korea to fund the Nairobi Intelligent Transport System.
While Ghana had a higher GDP than South Korea in 1960, today South Korea's GDP per capita is roughly eleven times Ghana's and its total economy is more than 16 times larger.
What changed?
It is documented: South Korea's rapid economic transformation from a war-torn agrarian society into a global tech powerhouse was fundamentally driven by its strategic reliance on science, technology and education.
At the CSIR, a problem has defied solution for years: marketing research findings.
Previous governments tasked the council to market its research.
But that proposal runs into a problem: scientists are not entrepreneurs capable of mass manufacture; secondly, scientists are not marketers; thirdly, marketing requires money.
Where is the money?
Because of that, many research solutions are still gathering dust on CSIR shelves.
I have toured the CSIR and I know there is no agriculture problem for which it has no solution.
Take the example of the Institute of Industrial Research (IIR), which has discovered a way to irrigate a farm from a distance.
The institute’s scientists have developed a mobile application (App) which enables farmers to remotely irrigate their farm from long distances – even up to a thousand kilometres away.
The remote-controlled irrigation device works with a borehole fitted with a submersible pump.
Solar panels convert sunlight into Alternating Current (AC) and store the energy in dry cell batteries.
The app turns on the pump through which water from the borehole flows into PVC pipes around the farm to water the crops.
The world is driven by technology.
Technology is why only five per cent of Americans are engaged in agriculture but can feed the whole nation, while 70 per cent of Ghanaians are into farming but cannot feed us.
Will Zanetor find the money?
For some reason, I find myself praying for her – to prove that no route beats the science route.
The writer is the Executive Director, Centre for Communication and Culture.
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