President Mahama noted that effective leadership must be at the core of governments if the country was to make any meaningful prog­ress.

According to him, that effective leadership his government had brought to bear, not sloganeering, was already yielding results to cush­ion Ghanaians from the economic hardships to start with.

Responding to claims by the for­mer Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, that his government had not introduced any policy to take credit for the steady appreciation of the Ghana Cedi against major trad­ing currencies, President Mahama said effective leadership was behind the economic gains being seen.

“It is not about one policy. The answer is effective leadership. With effective leadership, we can turn this economy around and create a better life for our people.

“That is what I’m committed to. To ensure that by the time we finish this four years, we’ll set high standard that whichever party comes to power cannot reverse the gains that would have been made in restoring our peoples confidence in the democracy”, President Mahama stressed.

He gave this assurance in Accra on Friday when the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference called on him at the Presidency.

Moreover, President Mahama stated that the responsibility to reset Ghana as he preached to the electorate ahead of the 2024 polls was not lost on him and that he remained focus on delivering that.

He acknowledged that there was waning confidence in the democrat­ic path the country had chosen but his government would work hard to restore the trust in the system.

“Ghanaians have bought into the message that I would be able to reset things. We used the word reset as one of our major cam­paign points in order to build the confidence of our people in our democracy again. So that responsi­bility is not lost on me.

“Since January 7, every step I’ve taken is meant to restore the faith our people have in our democracy and let them know that we can lead this country in a way different from what has been done in the past,” President Mahama said.

Led by its President and Bishop for Sunyani, Most Rev. Matthew Gyamfi, the Bishops, had request­ed of the President to among other things, restore the confidence of the people in the democracy, improve the living condition of the people and declare a state of emer­gency in targeted areas ravaged by galamsey.

Stressing on restoring the econo­my, President Mahama stated that his government had been focused on easing the cost of living of the people.

“Reduce the cost of living and the general hardship Ghanaians were going through has been the focus of my administration – fo­cusing on stabilising the economy, reducing hardship, cutting down expenditure, bringing more ac­countability into government and vigorously fighting corruption,” he emphasised.