EFL Says President’s Address On Economy Is “Empty” And “Uninspiring”
The Economic Fighters League (EFL) has criticised President Akufo-Addo’s speech on the economy as “empty”, “uninspiring” and lacking “leadership”.
In a statement, the group said the address of the President which had a blend of different languages including French is an attempt to conceal the “greed and gross incompetence” of the government.
While addressing the country on Sunday night, President Akufo-Addo announced twelve measures his government intends to use in saving the country from inflation, cedi depreciation and high debt rate.
The measures included Restoring macroeconomics stability through an IMF program; Encouraging traders to tone down profiteering which is contributing to inflationary pressures; Improving national resources and liquidity by raising revenues from 13% to 18%-20% of GDP; Establishing Energy sector reforms to reduce the risk of the sector to budget; and Continuing efforts to reduce central government expenditure through budget cuts of 30%.
The rest are: Tackling currency speculations to limit volatilities to the cedi; Tackling the cost of living by working to stabilize prices of petroleum products through new supply arrangements; Restoring debt sustainability by reducing debt to GDP ratio to 55% by 2028; Pursuing inclusive growth while protecting the poor; Reducing budget rigidities by capping statutory funds; Starting process of discouraging importation of rice, poultry, vegetable oil, fruit juices etc; and Ensuring no ‘haircuts’ in treasury bill holders in the debt restructuring strategy.
“As expected the President has provided a long, uninspiring assemblage of facts, semi-facts, and – for some unexplained reason – French sayings, all designed to create the illusion of solutions while actually attempting to conceal the greed and gross incompetence of his government”, a part of the statement from EPL said.
The group reckons that former President John Dramani Mahama as well had no better solution to the country’s economic predicaments during his era.
“His equally corrupt predecessor Mahama performed no better. Both these men seek to take the Ghanaian people deeper into debt.”
For EPL, the only sustainable option for the country is to draft a new constitution and consider its 12 policy proposals.
The group last week outlined twelve proposals for the government to reverse the economic crisis in which Ghana finds itself.
These policies included the replacement of Ministers’ V8 vehicles with less expensive and less fuel-consuming ones; reduction of the number of ministers; scrapping of ex-gratia; removal of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of State-Owned Enterprises from the government payroll.
They also proposed the removal of “unnecessary” levies from petroleum products; application of stabilisation levy; renegotiation of extractive contracts; abolition of tax concessions for foreign companies.
“Claim foreign shares from foreign companies especially multinationals who gain significant dollar value from Ghana”; institution of universal basic income; Enforcement of transactions in cedi only; and reduction in port rate for essential goods, it said.
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
