President's Townhall Meeting in Wash DC

[Submitted by NiiGhana]
The President submitted that his government will make dual citizenship legal within two months.

[Submitted by Kama]
The president promised "voting rights for all Ghanaians in the Diaspora"

[Submitted by Kwame Anning-Gyan.]
The President went to great pains to explain the approach being taken to arrest the economic situation. Essentially, he said that the government has a 'tripod' approach in which

• a good macro-economic management is being pursued.
• With that, government's domestic borrowing is being checked to reduce the pressure on inflation and interest rates to allow the private sector access to finances. He deemed a 50% interest rate unacceptable and hoped to bring it down to about 20% which he said was too high but much better.
• The focus on agriculture is of prime importance whereby mechanised agriculture and commercial farming will be encouraged. He also hopes to make available credit facilities to farmers and provide extension services for them.

He spoke of the increases in tariffs on utilities and said that the government couldn't subsidise these essential commodities in view of the fact that the treasury was empty. He said that the utilities requested a 300% increase but he deemed that too steep and worked with them to accept a 100% increase for the moment; while advising them to accept gradual increases as time goes on.

On HIPC which he dubbed 'HIPiC,' he explained that although his administration was aware that the economic situation was bad, they hardly knew how terrible it really was. In an attempt to provide a budget within three months of assuming office as required by the constitution, a balanced budget could not be offered and realised that until major financial help came from somewhere, there was no way we were going to be able to run the affairs of the nation. He mentioned several countries that are preparing to cancel Ghana's debts with them as a result of opting for the 'HIPiC' initiative.

He mentioned that the country had only six days worth of fuel stock after the change over which precipitated his desire to work fast to replenish the supply. He said President Obasanjo sympahised with him and decided not to require a letter of credit from Ghana before crude oil was supplied. As such his signature was good enough.

He spent a good deal of time talking about relations with neighbouring West African countries and quipped that Benin, Togo, and the Cote d'Ivoire all have discovered oil and Nigeria is 'awash' in it. Until we find some, which he promised will be very soon, we need to be nice to our neighbours so that they would help us out. He said such good neighbourliness is what made Nigeria sympahise with us in our need for an emergency supply of crude oil.

For most of us, he was the first to tell us about the floods in Accra, to which there was a big sigh, and said that he will be leaving Friday to go home to see to the plight of the affected people.

Disclaimer: I don't feel qualified to write this up since it is not coming from a journalistic point of view. I must say that although I'm of a different political persuasion, 'The Internet Party,' I was charmed. He is very personable and comes across as very sincere.