Former President John Dramani Mahama has opined that Ghana is at the crossroads hence there was the need to put in place collective measures to address the challenges confronting the nation.
He believes there is no shortage to our solutions and the government must take steps to address the issues.
“There is no shortage of solutions to our problems. It is the indolence and avid affinity of this government for a cosmetic approach to governance that has brought us here. Thus, we need farreaching actions from the President and his Economic Management Team to resolve our challenges.
Despite the challenges I remain confident that despite the current gloom, we can turn things around and create a brighter future for ourselves. Ghana’s best days are still ahead.”
In providing some solutions, Mr. Mahama indicated that those directly responsible for the economic crisis must bear responsibility and it is inconceivable that the Minister of Finance remains at post, having presided over the worst economic meltdown in Ghana’s recent history.
“The President must, without further delay, relieve the finance minister of his position and appoint someone who is focused on national rather than self-interest and who has the requisite skill, experience, and knowledge of public financial management in his stead. The personal benefit that the current minister and his cronies derives from borrowing on our behalf through the commissions taken by his companies who serve as transaction advisers raises an unacceptable conflict of interest situation which must end immediately.”
He said “It goes without saying that the Economic Management Team, has failed and must be reconstituted immediately, with fresh ideas and perspectives. Having supervised the worst public debt buildup, the worst budget deficit, the worst debt to GDP ratio, the worst credit ratings and downgrades, the worst performing currency in the world, the worst crisis of confidence in our economy, the highest fuel prices ever, ever-rising inflation and unprecedented hardships, the current Head of the Economic Management Team (EMT) has clearly fallen from his ivory tower as a self-styled economic messiah to a poster boy for economic mismanagement and his leadership of the EMT is no longer tenable.
He has lost sight of cause and effects relationships in the economic value chain and complains that our dire economic state is due to bad ratings from international agencies, rather than the fact that our dissipating economy resulted in those bad ratings. How does that assure Ghanaians he is focused on the critical things that need addressing?”
He further asserted that “The EMT has been bedeviled by their own ineptness, over exuberance and excessive focus on linear thinking of a theoretical cause and effect relationship, devoid of the practical influences of complex real-life nuances.
In short, the EMT assumed a laboratory experimental approach, typically found in textbooks, to the extremely complex Ghanaian economy, and analysed the impact of one variable at a time.
I have often said to people, in most cases, when you are analysing the Ghanaian economy and an obvious simple solution comes to mind, THINK, THINK AND THINK again. The consequence of this lack of depth and experience complicated the problems of economic management with excessive, yet costly experimentations that did not yield viable results.
Alternatively, the President may want to consider appointing one of the many highly qualified Ghanaian public finance management experts to lead the EMT.”
To the President he said “The President must as a matter of urgency reshuffle his cabinet. More than 5 years of an administration without a major cabinet reshuffle has calcified the management of the Ministries, departments and agencies. These MDAs and SOEs have become fiefdoms in which untouchable Ministers and heads of agencies are now monarchs of all they survey. Yet they lack the energy, passion, and ideas to turn moribund situations within the MDAs around. Fresh ideas are needed.”
He made the suggestions in his Ghana at the crossroads address on Monday.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
