President John Dramani Mahama has renewed his pledge to reposition the country back on a solid economic pathway that engenders confidence in the investing public. He said, as President his priority is to restore macroeconomic stability with commitment to “enforce responsible public financial management and ensure fiscal discipline at all levels of government” while working to reduce hardships amongst the citizenry.
Mr. Mahama made these remarks on Monday as keynote speaker of the National Economic Dialogue in Accra. He however acknowledged the challenge ahead towards economic recovery but remained resolute in the quest to rebuild Ghana for the present and future generations. The National Economic Dialogue is part of a 120-day contract of the President with the Ghanaian people. The high-level forum seeks to serve as a platform to assess the current state of Ghana’s economy, engage key stakeholders in constructive dialogue, and develop actionable solutions to reset the economy for sustainable and inclusive growth.
“The mistakes of the past must not define our future, and I vow to do everything in my power to steer this nation towards a brighter and more prosperous path. My fellow citizens, I know that the road to economic recovery will be challenging, but we must not relent in our quest to rebuild the Ghana we all want for the sake of our children and our children’s children. We owe it to ourselves, our children and our country to rebuild an economy that is resilient, that is sustainable and capable of delivering real opportunities for every citizen,” he stated.
He gave the assurance of safeguarding the independence of the Bank of Ghana to focus on its core mandate of implementing prudent monetary policies that curb inflation, stabilise the Ghanaian Cedi and rebuild Ghana’s foreign reserves. He condemned what he termed as “reckless borrowing and excessive government spending” that undermines the nation’s progress hinting at a review of existing legislation to eliminate excessive waste in the procurement of government supplies and projects.
“Single source procurement must be the rare exception rather than the norm. We must also subject government projects above a certain threshold through value for money audits. And just this morning I was reviewing some of the procurement reports. And there was this procurement for poultry farmers, 10,000 units or something. And it was single source. The reason for single source was urgency. And one company was given the contract to supply 10,000 units of whatever it was. The supplier and the person who assembles it was not allowed to bid. And so the company that won it went to the supplier, bought the items for 4,500 and came and sold them for 6,600 to government and walked away with 21 million Cedis on that supply. I mean, how can you do this? I mean, if it was our own company we were running how would we do a thing like this? But that is government bleeding. Everybody cutting their pound of flesh. That must stop,” he noted
The 2-Day National Economic Dialogue which concludes on Tuesday, is focused on 3 key objectives as follows: communicate the true state of Ghana’s economy to stakeholders and the people of Ghana; develop a homegrown fiscal consolidation programme to guide the national budget; and highlight key structural reforms and policy priorities essential for resetting the economy. The discussions of the dialogue have been centred on 6 key thematic areas including macroeconomic stability, private sector-led growth and deepening good governance, accountability and anti-corruption measures among others. The first day started with an official opening by President Mahama and continued with breakout sessions around the 6 themes.
The second day will continue with the breakout discussions from the first day then proceed for a high-level dialogue with presentations by the finance minister, energy and green transition minister, food and agriculture minister, trade, agribusiness and industry minister, labour, jobs and employment minister, governor of the Bank of Ghana, as well as the chairman of the National Development Planning Commission. The Vice President, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang will give the closing address. to conclude the symposium.
Source: Ceditalk.com