A veteran credit union practitioner has urged parents to use donations at the outdooring of their babies to open accounts for them.
Mr Albright Opoku-Kyeremeh, acting manager of Dormaa Chance Brothers Cooperative Credit Union, said the practice would expose the children to the habit of saving when they grow up.
He was contributing to a financial literacy education programme dubbed "Everyone Can Save" on Dormaa Community Radio.
The broadcast series, a cooperative venture of the GTZ, DANIDA and Ghana Government with sponsorship from the Support Programme for Enterprise Empowerment and Development (SPEED), was facilitated by Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN), an umbrella organization for community radio stations in the country.
Among the programme's objectives were to get people to discuss money and poverty freely, to build the understanding that everyone can save and to predispose people to save with financial institutions.
The series dwelt mainly on community participation with members of selected communities providing traditional songs, proverbs, folktale and oral testimony on the importance of saving.
Mr Opoku-Kyeremeh said the mere absence of money did not account for poverty, adding poor management and impulse use of resources gave much more impetus to poverty.
He said poverty levels among Ghanaians could be lessened if their resources were channelled appropriately and the accounts on all transactions kept for guidance.
Mr. Opoku-Kyeremeh said the culture of saving "does not begin with quantum of money in one's pocket but rather with mind-set and the commitment to save and make the savings grow over time".
He agreed with calls that the culture of savings be incorporated into school syllabuses to make the younger generation accept and practise of saving and borrowing as the bedrock of poverty alleviation.