Technical Advisor at the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Kabiru Mahama says government admits the huge impact of the economic shocks currently facing the country.

According to him, “government understands the problem” and is taking bold steps to remedy the situation.

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, on Thursday, announced a number of specific measures, the government will be implementing to put the ailing economy back on track.

Many have, however, questioned the feasibility of the expenditure cutting interventions.

But speaking on The Big Issue, Dr. Kabiru Mahama appealed to Ghanaians not to lose sight of the government’s efforts thus far. 

“What is government doing to ameliorate the situation? Government has understood the problem. We all know the problem, and government has been clear to communicate the problem to all of us. The question is, do we have faith in all the measures that have been put in place by the government? That is the question that needs an answer. I think we need to have faith in these measures. The Finance Minister signalled that, in the mid-year budget review he will tell us how these measures have yielded results, if they do not, we will review them.”

Ghana’s public debt level has attained an unsustainable level amidst rising inflation and rising cost of fuel products.

Among other things, government has reduced salaries of executive appointees by up to 30%. It is also pumping US$ 2 billion into the economy to stabilise the cedi’s depreciation.

These measures according to Dr. Kabiru Mahama, must be embraced.

He is optimistic, if rolled out, they will tackle the many challenges confronting the country and restore economic growth.

“Government is addressing the fundamental issues. The Finance Minister’s statement reiterated that since the start of this government, it has been consistent with its position of moving this economy away from a commodity-dependent economy to more of an industrialized economy. That will make our economy resilient. Shocks will always be there, but the respite people want to see will be there if we have a stronger economy.”

“The government will continue with its projects and bring more investors. All these are not just for the fun of it but they are supposed to lay the foundation for the development of this country to ensure that at least, jobs are created for a strong export advantage so the currency will have some stability.”

Measures not far reaching 

Economist, Professor Lord Mensah says government’s latest expenditure-cutting measures will amount to zilch because Ghana lacks self-discipline to yield the anticipated results in reversing the economic downturn.

He simply puts it as that, the country will be better off returning to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rather than pushing through what he feels are the unmeasurable steps taken by the government.

Professor Lord Mensah argued that the government’s expectations would be difficult to meet, as it would even have little bearing on savings.

He believes Ghana’s history with the management of the economy is proof the government is on the wrong path in ensuring effective implementation of these measures.

“With these self-discipline measures that we are trying to put across, we have done it before, so we don’t go to the IMF again, but we never followed through, so what shows that this time around, we are going to follow them? I don’t think things will work. If we were to go IMF, I will say the benefits would have been better compared to disciplining ourselves. With the IMF, we would have had that discipline being enforced by the IMF itself”, he said on the same show.