Caretaker Finance Minister Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has said that the Akufo-Addo government’s GHS100 billion Coronavirus Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprise Support (CARES) initiative, is the biggest singular financial investment ever made by any government in Ghana’s history.
Presenting the 2021 budget statement and economic policy on the floor of Parliament on Friday, 12 March 12, the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, said: “Mr Speaker, pursuing the GHS100 billion Ghana CARES ‘Obaatan pa’ programme allows us to address the challenges and also seize the opportunities created by COVID-19 for socio-economic transformation. This programme will foster closer collaboration with the private sector, labour, faith-based organiSations and development partners to complement efforts in the revitalisation and growth agenda.
The programme, he noted, is inspired by President Akufo-Addo’s conviction that “what our forebears dreamed of, we will achieve”, adding: “if we inherited dreams and visions from our founding fathers, we should leave legacies of achievements and realities to our children and their children”.
Ghana Cares (Obaatan pa) Programme
The GHS100-billion post-COVID programme was initiated by the government to stabilise, revitalise and transform Ghana’s economy and to create jobs and prosperity for Ghanaians over a three-year period.
It is sequenced in two phases; the stabilisation phase and the medium-term revitalisation phase.
The Suame MP told Parliament that the investment is aimed at expanding commercial agriculture and attracting educated youth into agriculture; building Ghana’s light manufacturing industry targeting agro-processing, food import substitution, textile and pharmaceuticals; developing engineering, machine tools and ICT digital economy industries; fast-tracking digitisation by expediting the government’s digital initiatives; developing Ghana’s housing and construction industry; and establishing Ghana as a regional hub leveraging its position within ECOWAS and as host to the Secretariat of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by focusing on manufacturing, finance, mining, healthcare, aviation and logistics, digital services, petroleum, automobile, tourism, hospitality and creative arts.
Economic recovery
According to Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the 2021 budget will ensure economic recovery and macroeconomic stability through the rolling out of well-thought-through measures that will set the economy back in motion.
He explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated a lot of economies around the world, Ghana inclusive, adding that the unexpected turn of events required swift action to ameliorate the negative impact of the pandemic on livelihoods.
“Under President Akufo-Addo’s leadership, we took the required swift, drastic and decisive measures to mitigate the spread of the pandemic. We rapidly mobilised and deployed extensive internal and external resources to support Ghanaian households and enterprises”.
“Mr Speaker, we are now better positioned to recover and build back a more resilient economy not only because we know how to do it but also because the grace of God has been assured for this journey,” he said.
Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com
