That Ghana is a credible and continues to remain a credible partner to multilateral agencies and financial institutions is a fact that no one or political opponents can deny.
That is because; while we may not be optimally satisfactory in our dealing with these institutions, the evidence is that the New Patriotic Party(NPP) as a government has a record of striving to attain goals in growth or even marginally exceed it.
That is not, however, to say that we cannot do better in accelerating gains and balancing growth with expectations and social impact.
We have seen the World Bank particularly show interest in the JAK administrations and capped that with maximal support for the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo administrations, including massive support during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine global economic disruptions.
Why not?
Every businessman knows that there is a reason why a bank would bend over backwards in intervening to save a customer when that customer is in trouble.
But it is all an about credibility and ability and capacity on the part of that customer to rebound or recover and make good his liabilities to the bank and in this case the World Bank.
That is why The Inquirer believes the World Bank would truly commit to to disbursing US$1 billion over the next 12 months to help in stabilising Ghana’s economy, and support private businesses. According to the World Bank’s release on Ghana, this is in addition to a $1.6 billion already disbursed for Ghana since last year to support the economy.
It is gratifying also to note that the World Bank has expressed satisfaction with measures being implemented by government to help stabilise the economy, a development that has influenced the disbursements to support projects identified in the budget and other initiatives aimed at reducing poverty.
Authoritative
The disclosure was made by the Country Director of the World Bank, Robert O’ Brien, who revealed that there is also a separate allocation of $5 billion under the World Bank Group for social intervention programmes and infrastructure projects.
He announced further that the Bank will soon meet to approve another set of funding for Ghana to finance critical projects, adding that “in terms of the portfolio funding, there is an allocation of $4.4 billion of that over the past 12 months, just $1 billion dollars have been disbursed.”
But it is even more refreshing that the World Bank, in June, approved a separate $800 million to support other sectors of the economy intended to help Ghana deal with shortfalls because of the country’s inability to raise money from the international capital market,
Sustainability
Unfortunately, when it comes to sustaining such gains so that we maintain those levels of credibility, our governments decrease levels of commitment, dragging Ghana back again to IMF Programmes because discipline is a bitter pill for the typical African politician.
But that is why it is critical for government to strive to ensure that the economic recovery is sustained, government must maintain fiscal discipline on election related spending.
As he pointed out, “Government must also work hard to grow the economy and create the required jobs for the population.”
This is important because without recovery jobs would hardly be created, with dire consequences for food security and sustenance of social protection programmes, including pensions, education and health.
Sanity down below
To holistically attain these goals, The Inquirer believes the financial sector in Ghana particularly has a role to play in supporting economic activities at market and community levels in improving lives and livelihoods.
That is why we commend the Amenfiman Rural Bank Plc for its satisfactory operations that has yielded fruit in attaining goals that position it to reach out to previously underserved informal economy actors in creating jobs,
The Rural Bank, through its innovative operations, has raised a loan facility of up to 400,000 cedis from its operations to support small and micro-scale enterprises to boost local productivity amidst the prevailing economic difficulties.
The rural bank is targeting investments into over 2,500 local women and youth-led businesses as part of activities streamlined for economic recovery.
That we believe is how nations grow economies from the grassroots to impact the national economy. And, that example should encourage other banks to help grow Ghana and its economy, in the opinion of The Inquirer.
Source:inquirernewsroom.com