ABSTRACT
Sub-Saharan African countries have spent a considerable part of the last decade attempting reform of their financial sectors to facilitate the growth of savings (both private and public) and to increase the rate and returns of productive investment. The need to achieve substantial growth in private and public savings arose because the characteristic poor output growth is derived from low investments, which are largely a consequence of low levels and rates of savings (World Bank, 1989). Savings rates of 12.5 per cent of GDP on average in the 1980s were not only far below the East Asian average of 28.9 per cent, but far less than was desirable to achieve an average annual growth rate of 5 per cent for the 1990s.
