This Economy is Not Holding

The news item looked innocuous. A number of Ghanaian returnees from Libya interviewed by e-TV, a popular private television station in Accra, broadcast as part of the morning breakfast news yesterday, said they were unable to cope with the cost of living in the country, and were contemplating returning to Libya or go to any place other than living in the country.

It is a statement that tells a lot about how difficult it is to eke out a living under John Evans Atta Mills’ ‘Better Ghana’ agenda. In another development, Joseph Allotey Jacobs, National Democratic Congress’ Communications Director in charge of the Central Region, told an Accra radio station at the week-end that cement producers in the country – Diamond Cement and the Ghana Cement Company (GACEM) – were deliberately sabotaging the government, that is why the cost of cement is now rising through the roof.

At the last count, a bag of cement was going for between GH ¢15 and GH ¢20, nearly a 100 percent increase within the past one year.

What the two issues have in common is that the economy is failing to respond to treatment in spite of the roof-top advertisement of an economy that has been properly tuned under the former university don. The market situation is proving a hard nut to crack by poor Ghanaians unable to afford the basic prices of goods and services.

The Chronicle is calling on the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, and his team of technocrats to do something drastically about the economy. We are calling for a stakeholders’ conference on the economy for a thorough examination of factors that are driving prices of goods and services through the roof.

Ghanaians are reeling under one of the most severe austere times since independence 54 years ago. Many are the homes where a meal a day is hard to come by. The unemployed are virtually at the wrong end of the economic indices.

Even those employed are unable to make the pay packet go round. That is one reason the Libyan returnees are unable to fix themselves into the system.

The allegation by the Central Regional Communications Director is interesting indeed. For what reason would GHACEM and Diamond Cement decide to conspire to undermine the efforts of the Government to make life meaningful for all Ghanaians?

When the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was given a blank cheque to increase electricity tariff by a whooping 89 percent last year, did the authorities not realise that the huge outlay in securing power would hit industry?

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Incidentally, Mr. Allotey Jacobs sits on the board of the ECG. There is no evidence that the so-called ‘Educated Fisherman’ was of any influence in an attempt to beat down the high tariffs. Meanwhile, GHACEM has come out to explain that in spite of the huge tariff, the company has also been hit hard by the intermittent power outages, which have seriously undermined the company’s ability to meet the supply chain.

In effect, the failure of ECG to meet its obligation of constant electricity supply, for which tariffs were increased, is the main reason why the price of cement is hitting the roof.

In any case, if the two cement companies have conspired to sabotage the government, it would meant that the cement companies do not have any confidence in the men and women running Ghana to the ground.

Allotey Jacob’s theory on the cement shortage seems to tell much about the thinking behind some of the strange policies driving the economy to the ground.