A Labour Consultant, Mr Austin Gamey has asked the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to organize a national dialogue on the challenges facing the economy just as Former President John Dramani Mahama did with the Senchi Forum.
Such a forum, he said, should be devoid of blame-game and rather open up for extreme, frank conversations about the economy and what can be done to minimize the troubles.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show with Alfred Ocansey on TV3 Wednesday October 19, he indicated that the country is in serious economic problems which require all stakeholders to come on board to address.
“Clearly, at this point in time, it is not just the normal meeting but it is abut going to a national tripartite committee.
“Talking about the importance of the national economy as it affects working people in the country, it is not only public sector workers but all working people are suffering. I think that it is important that they go to that meeting and let every card be faced up.
“Just like it happened in Ho during the time of the former President Mahama, culminating into Senchi, I think it is very important that we open up space fir a good conversation about what is happening in the economy.
“Let us not immediately be troubled about who did what and who did not do what, let us get to the meeting and have extreme frank meeting.”
Regarding the woes, Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen said the impression he gets from meetings he has been attending is that all countries, whether in Europe or Africa or Asia, are facing similar economic challenges – high inflation, food insecurity, currency depreciation, rising youth unemployment.
In his view, it doesn’t appear that there is going to be any reprieve next year.
Addressing a press conference in Washington DC, United States of America, he said “The general consensus across all the meetings I have attended is that we certainly are in the midst of global crisis. There is a saying that nowhere cool.
“I think coming here today, this week and the past week has really confirmed that we are not the only ones who have been going through very challenging times. Whichever country you engage the Ministers, whether being the West or in Africa or in Asia, their problems are similar – high inflationary pressures, currency depreciation, food insecurity, rising youth unemployment. It has really brought to the fore the fact that we need some unique solutions for these unique set of problems across board.
“There is also still quite a lot of uncertainty about the Russia-Ukrainian war and how it is going to end. It certainly seems that the understanding is that it is going to go into 2023, there seems to be the perception that 2023 is going to be tougher than 2022. If you look all at the forecasts you can see revisions have been made. These revisions have all been downwards, not upwards.
“The only thing that it may seem to have tapered off in the forecasts is, maybe, inflationary pressures but that of course will be based on the fact that this year has been so high, coming of a high base , it is unlikely that we will see the same high levels going into next year. Crude oil forecasts still seem to be in the high, double digits to triple digits
