Authorities were quick to announce a 40 percent salary increase for staff of the refinery, lest more trained staff quit. The workers had said that earlier attempts to negotiate new salaries had failed.
Clearly, the brain drain has been causing considerable damage to the development of the country. The World Bank report notes that though remittances and investments in Ghana reduced poverty and were a major source of foreign exchange, the broader implications were "complex."
It said that policies may be needed to raise incomes of professionals in their home countries.
With Ghana being one of the world's highly indebted poor countries, it may yet be a long time before incomes are raised high enough to convince highly trained citizens to stay, let alone lure back those who have left.
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