By Adiza Bawa
Director of Communications of the NPP, Yaw Buabeng Asamoah says the reason Ghana is not getting the needed maximum utility out of the country’s raw materials is the lack of investing in the knowledge of Ghanaians.
He added that after over sixty years of independence, the country still exports raw gold.
He lamented that Ghanaians can’t process their own raw gold.
”Ghana doesn’t have a local gold industry”.
He added that the NPP government has a plan to invest in the human capital and in the sector of the economy that can create jobs and the needed human capital will go into.
“I agree that worldwide the economy is struggling. If you isolate the Ghanaian economy in that context, then you begin to create the impression that we’re an Island unto ourselves. But in this modern world, there is one International economy”, he stressed.
Mr. Buabeng Asamoah asserted that the Ghanaian economy is far more integrated than other countries, Ghana imports everything, which means the country is in the currency market….in the exchange market.
“We are involved in other countries because when they produce in those countries, the impact on prices and other things impact us when we buy those products to ship them in Ghana. All along, that value chain is a cost to Ghana. And then we have to find the dollar, the cedi and the foreign exchange locally to convert all the profits in foreign currency for re export”.
Mr. Buabeng Asamoah noted that the world’s economy was in its comfort zone before it was hit by Covid.
“So we are integrated. The problems of the international economy are reflected more or less locally. Before Covid came, we were doing reasonably well. We were averaging 7% growth since 2017 right through to 2019. In 2020, we were hit by Covid 19 in March. Before Covid, the rest of the world was doing well. Interest rates were negative. In other words, they were not taking interest in giving away money. Governments were encouraging lending. They were not even asking for interests”, the NPP Communications Director posited.
He said the government is in debt because the country could not maintain production due to the pandemic. He added that the government also catered for the people also during the pandemic.
“Living standards are dropping because standards are rising. So now, we are confronted by the same thing in Ghana, that Post Covid. We couldn’t maintain production because of Covid. And now we are in a situation where during Covid-19, the government had to spend money to protect the populace. Which means government expenditure has gone up. So we have government debt. We need to support people still to get out of Covid because people lost jobs”.
Mr. Buabeng Asamoah said hardships are not based on the government’s actions. He indicated that the NPP did its best during the period of hardships when the country went into lockdown.
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