Press zooms in on President’s commitment to strengthening democracy, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
The assurance by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that his government would commit to the strengthening of the legislature for Ghana’s democracy to further develop is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Ghanaian Times reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured that his government would commit to the strengthening of the legislature for Ghana’s democracy to further develop.
The president said it was for the good of the country that parliament continues to develop its capacity to exact accountability on behalf of the citizen as no institution is better suited for this role.
“As President of the Republic, I assure you that, out of duty to our children and grandchildren, and to generations yet unborn, my government will do everything it can to help strengthen Parliament.
“We will not give up when it comes to deepening our democracy and guaranteeing the integrity of the electoral process; and neither should you, the Ghanaian people.
“We do not have to look far back into history to see that stable period of constitutional government and intelligent management of the economy leads to prosperity. We must do everything within our means to safeguard our democracy,” President Akufo-Addo noted.
He said this in a statement read on his behalf by the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, yesterday in Accra at the launch of the 30th anniversary of Parliamentary Democracy in Ghana.
The year-long programme is on the theme “Thirty Years of Parliamentary Democracy under the Fourth Republic: The Journey Thus Far”.
The newspaper says that Germany is ready to engage other development partners yet to sign on to the Creditors Committee under Ghana’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), the German Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Ms Svenja Schulze, has said.
To bring the country on the path of debt sustainability, the government is pursuing a DDEP to restructure on both domestic and external debt.
In the domestic debt, Ghana is seeking to restructure GH¢137 billion of its domestic debt.
She made the pledge in Accra yesterday in a statement issued with the Finance Ministry after she held bilateral meeting with the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
The statement said the meeting which was to advance Ghana-German relations, discussed, among other things, the role KfW can play to support the Government of Ghana after the debt restructuring.
Ms Schulze said Germany during the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting scheduled to take place in end February, would implore other creditors of Ghana to join the Creditors Committee.
That, she said, was necessary to bring the country on the path of debt sustainability and restore macroeconomic stability.
Ms Schulze said Germany would support the country to establish the Ghana Financial Stability Fund as part of the Debt Exchange Programme.
“KfW will continue to support the Development Bank Ghana, to be an advocate for setting up a Creditors Committee,” the German Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, said.
Mr Ofori-Atta told the German delegation that the Government of Ghana (GoG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team had successfully reached Staff-Level Agreement on economic policies and reforms to be supported by a new three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility of about US$3 billion in December 2022.
He further indicated that the parties had agreed on structural reform benchmarks, prior actions, performance criteria on key macro-fiscal indicators and the finalisation of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP).
The Graphic reports that last week, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, told Parliament that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) loaned a total of GH¢37.96 billion to the government in 2022 to help meet public expenditure demands.
The report to the Legislature was in compliance with Section 30 (6) of the Bank of Ghana Act, 2002, (Act 612), which requires that the Minister alerts Parliament of the amount that was borrowed from the central bank under emergency.
The Graphic Business finds the action by the Finance Minister as a feather in the cup in our push for good governance and institutional oversight, albeit late in coming.
Having descended into an economic crisis of historical magnitude last year, the country needed to marshal all its forces to help steady the ship and guide it to calmer waters.
This required the resort to unpopular yet emergent policies akin to jettisoning in ocean transportation where some shipments were sometimes thrown overboard during emergencies to help save the rest.
In the case of Ghana’s economic situation last year, one of those avenues was to the resort to the central bank for resources to close the gap created by low revenues in the midst of a lack of market access and the ballooning expenditures.
Although the practice has been accepted to be suboptimal and was, therefore, rarely used, it came up as one of the credible avenues to saving the situation.
As Mr Ofori-Atta said in his statement to Parliament, the situation presented a very challenging macroeconomic environment during 2022, leading to a widened financing gap of the budget.
He said it, therefore, became necessary for BoG to fund shortfalls at the auction market to avoid a disorderly default and prevent a deeper crisis.
GIK/APA