Government will implement a strong economic recovery program

The government will implement a strong economic recovery program during its second term to get the economy back on track after the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The broad program is the key pillar on which the program for the second term of the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is based.

“It is a priority because without it there is little foundation on which we can build the transformation agenda that we all want,” Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said at the conference. ministers’ press release in Peduase yesterday after a three-day Cabinet retreat at the Presidential Villa, Peduase Lodge, in the Eastern Region.

The shocks

The information minister said the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to the economy had been so severe that attention needed to be paid to its rapid recovery, especially on macroeconomic fundamentals.

According to him, the Cabinet had approved the program for the rapid recovery of the economy which would be embodied in the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) due today and in the 2021 budget statement to presented by the Leader of the Government. Business in Parliament, Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu Friday.

Before COVID-19

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the country was growing steadily from 2017 to 2020, improving in various areas such as gross domestic product (GDP) growth, macroeconomic stability and specific development programs.

“The effect of the pandemic, among others, has been a sharp reversal of the macroeconomic and fiscal gains we were making until the pandemic. This week the government has two major events, SONA and the budget that should launch the 2021 program, ”he said.

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah added that “a common thread that will lie in the two is a strong focus on the post-COVID-19 recovery agenda aimed at allowing the economy to return to its previous successes.”

“It is true that our debt-to-GDP ratio as a result of the COVID-19 response program has exceeded our desirable numbers because as you know we were projecting growth of around 6%, we had to go down to 0.9 for percent due to interventions that slowed the economy.

“When the economy slows down and the revenues don’t come, government revenues would be where you might not want them to be. Maybe the GRA could achieve its goal. At the same time, you have to spend a lot more money on the COVID-19 response program, so that the deficit is not where you want it and that does not mean that you are HIPC ”, a- he declared.

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said the President had been clear in his mind to focus on establishing a strong collaboration between his ministers so that they could achieve greater synergy from the work they would do as individuals so that they could approach their work with a sense of urgency to deal with the problems that had plagued different sectors of the economy.

The president, he said, prioritized the post-COVID-19 recovery agenda as one of his main focal points ahead of SONA and the budget.

Returned

Responding to the focal points of the economic stimulus program, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said, among other things, that it was necessary to seek the best ways to mobilize more income to meet the challenges posed by COVID-19.

“It is important to find the best ways to raise income to meet the challenges we have. But the president is also careful not to overwhelm the population which has already had its own difficulties because of the COVID-19 pandemic, ”he explained.

The Information Minister expressed optimism that the final measures to be announced on Friday would be the fine lines between increasing incomes without weighing down the population, adding that “it is a mix of measures, and the details will be announced later ”.

—-graphic.com