Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta
Against the social media campaign unleashed by a section of the Ghanaian youth urging the government to #FixtheCountry, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has unveiled an initiative aimed at further creating more and more jobs within the next four years.
According to the Minister, government, without any pressure and prompting by any outside forces, has managed to add another deft initiative to its record of job creation and improvement in lives and livelihoods.
Expert intervention
During an interaction with the media and civil society, the Minister took time to explain government’s financial and expenditure profile. In explaining that, he noted that but for the COVID-19 pandemic, whose negative effects have been expertly managed by government, the economy would have continued on the positive light it was showing pre-Covid.
Comparing Ghana to other equally endowed countries in Africa and the world, he pointed out that our country, under the circumstances, had fared better.
As any serious civil society actor would admit, Ghana has stood tall among contemporaries within the league of developing African nations who survived the worst from the pandemic.
That is the reason why, in our opinion, developing agencies across Europe, Asia, among others, continue to court Ghana in rolling out partnerships in several sectors, particularly in social protection and agriculture.
Positive response
From the Finance Minister’s briefing, it is instructive to bring to the fore that a simple analysis of the figures on debt management between the previous Mahama and current Akufo-Addo governments indicate that the NPP administration has performed better.
Indeed, Ghana under the watch of the incumbent administration has performed creditably, especially taking into account the productive reforms in areas where the debts were registered, including the banking sector, social protection and business support.
By the very uncivilised acts of some greedy actors, we have inflicted upon ourselves additional debt burdens in ensuring enhanced water production by generating potable water in affected communities. Additionally, we are being compelled to clean up the rivers by detoxifying the water bodies and reclaiming the ecology.
Fixing our roads
That, however, provides opportunities in job creation in the vulnerable communities, aside of the poor roads in most part of the country that would generate additional opportunities for construction in fixing Ghana.
Management of congestion on our roads would also support job creation as more skilled workers, trained from state resources, are deployed along our principal routes and highways.
As we would also admit, this initiative will help the youth and unemployed segments of our population to access livelihoods to support themselves and their families.
There is hope
To the advocates of the #FixTheCountry initiative, we believe that the Finance Minister was spot on when he announced a $200 million job creation package to deal with these issues, as part of the holistic programme aimed at fixing water and sanitation challenges with the ultimate goal of improving lives and livelihoods.
That this particular initiative is rolling out at a time when the Ghanaian youth is demanding that the country rises to the occasion in solving our problems is a step in the right direction.
The picture does not, in our opinion, suggest that the country is facing any doomsday, alarmist situation. If anything, it is offering government and, indeed, all Ghanaians, the opportunity to fix the country.
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