The Ghanaian Journal

The statement of the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Kodwo Baah-Wiredu to the effect that the economy of Ghana is robust and resilient has elicited some response from the CPP.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, Mr.Ekow Duncan, the Director of Operations of the CPP National Campaign Team stated that the macro economic statistical approach adopted by the minister in an examination of the economy was propaganda, convenient and self- serving.

The more useful approach according to Mr. Ekow Duncan would be to examine the structures and functions of the economy to determine the relevant and appropriate redemptive growth and development policies. This approach Mr. Duncan said. would reveal a primitive and under-developed economy with weak agricultural export commodity sector dominated by a single crop that is threatened by disease, a weak manufacturing sector largely dependent on imported agricultural raw material, a disjoint between the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, an under productive food and raw material agricultural sector and poor trade terms on global markets.

The cumulative effect of weak structures, disjoints, under-production and dysfunctions is a weak, fragile and import dependent economy that is susceptible to adverse global economic developments and an endemic structure of balance of trade deficits that cause the depreciation of the local currency and inflation. It explains according to Mr. Duncan, why the country will not win the war against inflation and under-development with sole dependence on fiscal and monetary policies and pre-conditioned multilateral aid and concessionary loans that precludes investments in the productive sectors that has been the hall-mark of P/NDC and NPP economic management policies but by structural reforms buttressed and driven by creative innovative finance, science and technology. The base rate of commercial banks has in recent weeks moved to an average of 27% from 17% in spite of the deficit reduction and stabilisation measures we have undertaken for the past 28 years under the regimes of the P/NDC and NPP.

A CPP government, he said, would diversify the agricultural export commodity sector to include in addition to Cocoa , Coffee, Sugar and Sheanut and make investments in storage and processing to manage and add value to the supply of the commodities on the international markets to improve our terms of trade.

A CPP government will give incentives to the breweries, flour mills and dairy manufacturing firms to source within a time frame, their raw materials from the domestic market to create employment, promote agricultural production and improve incomes of our farmers. A price support mechanism for food production will be instituted as an incentive to increased production and to move the sector from the subsistence and informal levels.

A CPP government will give serious attention to the development of our brick and tile industry to lessen our dependence on imported clinker.

The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning should stop playing politics with the lives of our people because “things are not good at all” so say Ghanaians and he should take time and listen to the cries of the people. We know that the NPP and NDC cannot derive the relevant policies for the reconstruction of a post colonial economy from their ideological perspectives if any. This is the forte of the CPP which is guided by its Nkrumahist philosophy and ideology for the development of a post colonial economy that has made the Party the most effective government in the economic development history of this country. A vote for the CPP therefore is a vote for the prosperity of the good people of Ghana .