Anticipate improved living conditions in 2020 – Osafo-Maafo to Ghanaians
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo has asked the citizenry to anticipate a radical improvement in their general living conditions shortly, given the fast-growing nature of the country’s economy, ABC News can report.
According to him, the government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has made a deliberate effort to build and enhance Ghana’s macroeconomic environment, assuring that the ripple effect of the enhancement will soon manifest in the lives of the people.
Answering a question; “what is the current administration doing about the living conditions of Ghanaians? Things are rough and tough,” posed to him in an interview with Accra based Citi FM, Yaw Osafo-Maafo indicated that government has succeeded in building the “fundamentals” and things will be “smooth” soon.
“I get this question almost on a daily basis from people. We must at every point in time make sure that we are getting certain fundamentals right and I can assure you that way the economy is growing and going to expand with time, very soon and I mean very soon, what you are describing as rough and tough will be smooth and good,” he said.
Mr. Osafo-Maafo’s eloquent assertion of improved economic fundamentals is proven and legibly captured in the 2020 budget statement read by the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta in Parliament Wednesday.
“Mr. Speaker, for the last two years (2018 and 2019), Ghana has been amongst the fastest-growing economies in the world! Ghana’s recent growth has not been primarily driven by oil, it has been more broad-based. In fact, Non-oil GDP has increased from 4.6% in 2016 to 6.5% in 2018 and is projected to reach 6.0% in 2019 and 6.7% in 2020, respectively, reflecting the impact of our flagship programmes,” the Finance Minister stated among other things.
On the back of these successes chalked by government, Yaw Osafo-Marfo was hopeful that the Ghanaian will reap the benefit come 2020.
He stressed that it was necessary to first focus on building the fundamentals because “you cannot do anything on production without this macro environment.” People think otherwise; you cannot be produced within inflation of 60 per cent, is not possible.”
The Senior Minister iterated that with a 7.5 per cent inflation rate and prudent financial management like keeping your deficit by law below five per cent of GDP, the future is good.
“The macroeconomics are looking very good and working well now. There is always a lag and now that we are dealing with the actual sectors like One District One Factory; we are dealing with Planting for Food and Jobs and others, these are also bringing out desired results.
“But there is a lag and I can assure you that as we enter the last lap of Nana Addo’s first term, we shall see change for better because we have got the macro environment right,” he averred.
Source: ABCNewsGh.com
