Vice President pays tribute to former managers of economy

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has advised that discussions and management of the Ghanaian economy, especially on issues of fiscal discipline and consolidation, should go beyond partisan concerns to innovative management.

It was in that light that strategies were under way to bring down the 73 percent debt to GDP ratio amidst other fiscal measures which have led to low returns on treasury bills and the consideration in the coming months of legislations to guide fiscal policy.

Dr. Bawumia was the Guest of Honour and Speaker in Accra at the launch of the 320-page book, Africa in Search of Prosperity- Ishmael Yamson’s Essays on Development Economics, Business, Finance, and Economic Growth.

It is edited by Mr. Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a Visiting Associate Professor and Director of the Wole Soyinka Foundation at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa and Prof. Bill Buenar Puplampu, the Vice Chancellor of the Central University in Accra. It has two forewords by Baroness Lynda Chalker of Wallasey, Former Minister for Africa, British and the Commonwealth Office and Doug Baillie, Former President of Unilever Africa.

The Vice President said the economy of Ghana has suffered many re-lapses over the years and that it had shown that graduation from programmes of multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were no guarantees against fiscal slippages by experience.

Dr. Bawumia was on stage with two former Ministers of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey and the current Senior Minister- Yaw Osafo- Maafo.

He paid tribute to their stewardships and said they were two of the best Ministers of Finance and Economic Planning during their times.

Dr. Bawumia also paid tribute to his former boss, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Paul Acquah of whom he served as Deputy at the Bank saying monetary policy formulation and implementation were also based on stalk-holder participation including the private and recounted how Dr. Acquah introduced him to Dr. Ishmael Yamson whenever they had to deal with private sector opinion in monetary policy consideration.

On his part, Dr. Yamson who is currently chairman of MTN and the Standard Chartered Bank expressed despair at issues of leadership, corruption and partisan calculation of issues which were affecting growth of both the economy and business and regretted that challenges which he addresses in the book and should have been confronted were still afflicting Ghana’s development almost two decades back.

The packed event was attended by members of the banking sector, Council of State and academia.