CITAG’s Blay Outlines Wild Solutions To Avert Economic Catastrophe
The Leader of a Human Rights Advocacy group, Citizens for Truth and Accountability, Ghana (CITAG), has proposed a number of critical measures that the group believes will salvage Ghana’s ailing economy.
According to the convener of CITAG, Mr. Clement Clinton Blay, these measures are to be deployed by the government as quickly as possible in order to avert a total collapse of the economy.
Addressing the Media on Thursday, 27, Mr. Clement Blay revealed that, Private Companies are set to lay off a number of workers due to a collapse in businesses which has been worsened by the current economic catastrophe, therefore, the redundancies have become necessary to help keep the business viable.
“As I’m speaking to you, businesses are in trying times, they are struggling to survive. The fast depreciation of the cedi and some unfavorable economic indicators are of deep concerns to industries. I can boldly tell you that most private businesses are threatening to secretly layoff workers in the next coming days.”
The group, Citizens for Truth and Accountability, Ghana has backed the calls on the government to dissolve its economic management team for failing to address the current economic challenges facing the country.
According to the group convener, the so-called economic management team led by Vice President Bawumia has failed to serve its purpose of ensuring an improvement in the living conditions of Ghanaians including stabilizing the Cedi.
He thus emphasized the need for the team to be dissolved to save taxpayers’ money and that of investors.
Mr. Blay stressed that, calls by some NPP MP’s in parliament for the removal of Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is not surprising and was long overdue.
Clement Blay also disagreed with the President’s appeal claiming terminating the appointment of Mr Ken Ofori-Atta will disrupt the IMF programme, emphasizing that the finance minister has lost ideas of healing the distress economy.
Citizens for Truth and Accountability, Ghana has however suggested for an aggressive industrial plan of boosting local manufacturing companies to avert a looming recession.
“Our strong recommendation is that in engaging the IMF, we must pay maximum attention to the industrial and agricultural sectors of our economy to hasten recovery” he said.
Clement Clinton Blay has warned that things could get worse in the coming weeks if an exclusive local content policy is not produced or manufactured locally.
Reacting to the Ghana Cedi being slumps to be the world’s worst performer against the dollar, Mr. Blay described the depreciation of the Ghanaian Currency as “Time Bomb” having a huge effect on the Ghanaian market.
Mr. Blay attributed the phenomenon to the activities of the black currency market which has significantly contributed to the depreciation of the Cedi against major trading currencies.
He said the situation where the parallel market was driving the supply and rate of foreign exchange transaction was unacceptable, and no effort must be spared to rein in that situation to curb the currency crisis around the Cedi.
To this end, he urged Bank of Ghana and the Forex Bureaus to lend support to every action that the government will embark to prevent the black market operators from the financial space.
The convener who is also a Pharmacist stated that the depreciation of the Cedi has compel the Ghana National Chamber of Pharmacy to sell drugs only on cash basis, adding that although the decision would create problems, it is not surprising, considering the current economic woes.
Meanwhile, he indicates that the Ghana Chamber of Pharmacy should not be blamed for this development as they are also trying to sustain their capital.
The effect of the decision by the Chamber of Pharmacy according to CITAG could mean that if the situation continues to persist, there will be lost of lives and more hospitals will collapse.
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Filed by Kaakyire Kwasi Afari
