Bawumia outlines measures to get Ghana out of economic hardship

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has admitted that Ghana is currently going through an economic crisis which has brought untold hardships on many Ghanaians. Speaking at a Standard Charted Bank event in Accra on Wednesday (October 26), Dr. Bawumia intimated that to get out of this current situation, Ghanaians must prepare themselves for more hardship because the government will soon commence implementing tough measures to help resolve the crisis. The vice president went on to list the measures which he indicated the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will soon address Ghanaians on. Fiscal and debt sustainability Dr. Bawumia indicated that the government would put together expenditure and tax measures that will ensure a reduction in government debts. He said that these measures are being discussed as part of the ongoing discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and will soon be made known to Ghanaians. “In Ghana specifically, we are dealing with an economic crisis that we have to address in different dimensions. The first and most important, which affects the confidence that we have in the economic system, is to make sure that we have fiscal and debt sustainability. This has been one of the areas where we are having discussions and negotiations with the International Monetary Fund about,” he said. “Restoring fiscal and debt sustainability will no doubt is not going to be easy. It will require very bold, difficult, but firm decisions. And I think these are part of the discussions that we’re having with the IMF. I’m sure once those are concluded, it will be clear that it will not be and it should not be business-as-usual because we have to adjust to the new global and domestic realities,” he added. Tightening foreign exchange regime: Dr. Bawumia went on to say the government will also be looking at the foreign exchange regime, which he described as being very loose. “We also have to look very clearly at our foreign exchange regime. It’s very clear that it is quite loose, and this is why we are going to be working to see how we can tighten the foreign exchange regime. “When the President addresses the nation, hopefully by the end of the week, some of these details will be fleshed out in more specifics. But in broad terms, I think you cannot address the current economic crisis without addressing the fiscal and debt sustainability, without addressing the production side, without addressing the foreign exchange regime and what allows us to lose a lot of foreign exchange,” he said. Digitalising Ghana’s economy The vice president further stated that addressing the digitalizing needs of Ghana is very critical to resolving the difficulties in the country. “But more importantly, if we are going to address this, this economy must be digitalized. And that is something we started since 2017 in earnest because no economy can really participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution without the digitalization of the economy,” he said Listen to the vice president’s statement below: You can also watch this episode of People & Places on GhanaWeb TV: IB/BOG