Kwaku Kwarteng, Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, agrees with the body of government that the main cause of Ghana’s economic woes is global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. Not yet.
Obuasi Nishi said reckless public spending and economic mismanagement by past and present governments were also major factors.
Mr Kwarteng dismissed the excuse that without the global crisis, Ghana would have avoided the fiscal downturn it is currently experiencing.
“I don’t buy the idea that the coronavirus and the Russo-Ukrainian war are to blame, not the financial crisis,” he said in an interview with Joy News.
“There’s always going to be some kind of financial crisis in this country. If COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war hadn’t happened, we might have been a little later, but if we continue on the path we’ve been on. The fact remains that we were definitely meant to get here.”
Mr Kwarteng stressed that a shift in mindset towards fiscal responsibility is urgently needed to prevent Ghana from sliding into further economic crisis.
He also pointed to the ineffectiveness of existing laws and institutions in addressing economic mismanagement, and without a collective commitment to change, these measures alone will have no impact on recovery. He emphasized that there was not enough to give.
“We have laws and we have set up institutions to help deal with these things. But no amount of laws, no amount of institutions, can stop people who are determined to self-destruct.”
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