President Nana Akufo-Addo says his government has in the last three years fixed Ghana’s poor economic fundamentals left by the John Mahama administration.
All the fundamentals, he said, are currently pointing in the right direction.
“We inherited a situation with a large fiscal deficit, which has been turned around now. Considerable imbalances in the way in which our economy was being run have also been turned around,” he said on Monday during a panel discussion at the African Investment Forum in South Africa.
The President said Ghana’s inflation which was 15.4 per cent is today at 7.6 per cent, describing the feat as “the lowest in two decades”.
“In these three years, we have had one of the fastest growing economies not just on the continent, but also in the world, with this year being a 7.6 per cent growth. It has been consistent over these last three years,” he boasted.
The management of Ghana’s public finances, Nana Akufo-Addo indicated “has been our major objective and so far so good we are realizing this”.
Nana Akufo-Addo said though election years have been characterised by excessive budget overruns, his government is working to ensure that the practice is not repeated in 2020 when Ghana is set to have its general elections.
“We are resisting the temptation, in an election year, to turn on the tap, hoping that the work we have done will take us through, without having to do that,” he told the gathering investors from across the world.
Touching on the development of infrastructure, he stated that his government is paying a lot of attention to the development of the country’s roads, railways, and airport infrastructure.
“In fact, last year, an important initiative launched, which is bearing fruit, is the Accra SkyTrain project in which South African investors are taking a very keen interest. We are hoping that we would be able to advance that concept this year,” he said.
He added that the transformation of Ghanaian agriculture is something his government has been focusing on, noting the programme for Planting for Food and Jobs which they introduced, has seen a revival of Ghanaian agriculture.
“Planting for Food and Jobs has proven to be a spectacular success. First of all, in the way it is addressing the availability of food stuffs. We are now in the position, for the first time in over a decade, of exporting food stuffs to our neighbours. We are very keen in developing private sector interest, because Ghanaian agriculture is largely smallholder,” he added.
On the exploitation of Ghana’s considerable mineral resources, President Akufo-Addo told the gathering that Ghana is keen on adding value to these resources, and desisting from exporting them in their raw form, adding that “we are now trying to forge the policies to make it possible for these to be the subjects of investments.”
By 3news.com|Ghana