John Gatsi writes to Mahama- Make strategic use of the goodwill, focus on food inflation

Normally, immediately after elections, politicians would like to continue with the campaign messages. One of such messages is to propagate that the economy has recovered to the level of pre-covid period.

This has been the campaign towards the 2024 elections and the President repeated same at the first meeting of the transition team to create the impression that sound economy has been handed over to the new administration at the time when the government statistician is warning that until the growth numbers are sustained, little impact will be experienced by the owners of the economy, the citizens.

The truth is growth numbers has been positive from first to third quarter of 2024 but the growth is not inclusive and still jobless. Recording good growth led by mining sector including galamsey will soon prove to be undesirable.

Oil and gas sector is recording negative outcomes, cocoa sector is showing five quarters of sustained negative growth while water and sewerage also boast of negative growth with electricity sector showing less than 1% growth.

I believe the work of the new government is to understand how the growth numbers are good through the election year with negative to marginal performance of key sub-sectors. The past three weeks witnessed some appreciation at huge cost of close to US$900million with possibility of painful trend reversal to the economy.

Inflation and especially food inflation, which is expected to be a major immediate focus by the new government, tell a story of widespread cost of living difficulties for citizens with some experiencing water and electricity poverty at pronounced levels.

The food inflation is also an indication that production and reversal of food imports should be addressed by the new government.

The capacity of the economy to honour debt obligations, both domestic and external, is still not convincing while we are yet to add hidden debts in the form of actual debt and contract sums among others.

Instead of thinking the economy has recovered, we should know that unemployment has surged, with huge number of Ghanaians with business ideas lacking support to realize their potentials. Interest rates to Ghanaian businesses and households remain unbearable.

Let us focus on the problems created by the outgoing government, flag them and project them for immediate attention. Let’s use the goodwill to attract support for the fight against food inflation, building confidence, rebuilding domestic capital markets and demonstrating prudence.

The is complicated but never beyond the ability of the new government.

By John Gatsi

Dean of the Business School, University of Cape Coast

The post John Gatsi writes to Mahama- Make strategic use of the goodwill, focus on food inflation first appeared on 3News.

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