President assures of Better days ahead
A confident President John Dramani Mahama has assured Ghanaians of better days ahead, in spite of the current economic challenges facing the nation.
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In his State of the Nation Address to Parliament Tuesday, Mr Mahama sought to inform Ghanaians who were worried about the economic challenges confronting the nation that his government understood the situation and was moving fast to reignite the economy.
But he was not happy with the "pettiness of politics" that drew some people to wish for the failure of the government.
In that regard, he called for a change that would see everyone playing his or her part in propelling the economy forward.
True to expectation, the two-hour, 20-minute address had a chunk of it devoted to the economy, with the President detailing a progressive agenda to tackle what he described as the short-term economic challenges.
Economic challenges
Among the issues being implemented, he said, was the recent forex rules announced by the Bank of Ghana to stabilise the cedi against the major trading currencies.
He said the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) and the Attorney-General had been charged to monitor the situation and sanction hotels and other entities that continued to flout the directive not to quote their rates in dollars.
He mentioned one of the fundamental problems of the economy as over reliance on exports, adding that last year the nation spent as much as $1.5 billion in foreign currency on the importation of rice, sugar, wheat, frozen fish, poultry and vegetable cooking oil.
"Imagine this money had been retained in Ghana, going into the pockets of Ghanaian entrepreneurs who, in turn, would be spending their cedis at other Ghanaian enterprises in Ghana," he said.
He pointed out the need for the country to revisit the Operation Feed Yourself and Operation Feed Your Industries programmes of the late General Kutu Acheampong which went a long way to strengthen Ghana's self-reliance.
Heckling
The President, who was repeatedly heckled by the Minority during his delivery, humorously countered the heckling to bring life to the chamber.
At a point when the Minority greeted a point he was making with the Akan refrain " Tweaa, tweaa", he parried it with the response, "Who said tweaa? Are you my co-equal?" parodying an outburst by the District Chief Executive for Ahafo Ano South at a meeting with health workers at Mankranso.
On another occasion, the President virtually took over the job of the Speaker when he shouted, "Order! Order!" and asked the Minority to keep quiet and listen to the lecture he was giving them on Economics.
He said Ghana was posting economic growth that was the envy of many countries.
"Mr Speaker, the economic fundamentals remain sound and our mid-term prospects are good. Growth continues to be robust, estimated at 7.4 per cent last year, and we still retain our vision to accelerate and maintain GDP growth at above eight per cent, going forward," he said.
Non-oil economy
President Mahama said in 2013 the non-oil sector of the economy grew by 5.81 per cent over the previous year's, while agriculture, in spite of all the challenges it faced, recorded a significant growth of 3.41 per cent.
"The fact that we are transiting into a service economy is apparent from the strong growth that continues to be posted by the services sector," he added.
These and other growths recorded in other sectors of the economy placed Ghana in a bright position economically for the future, he said.
President Mahama said since 2007, the world had been faced with financial crisis and Ghana had been affected by the pressure.
Putting people at the centre
The President said the government would continue to place the people at the centre as it worked to bring qualitative change to their lives.
"Change can often feel uncomfortable, especially as it pulls away from the systems and practices we know and use. Change is what will propel us forward as a nation, so claim the opportunities and prosperity that lie ahead," he told Ghanaians.