Features
Need to rebuild the economy – role of Central Bank
Economic growth does not come by chance but through deliberate and systematic implementation of sound economic programmes that help to bring about the desired economic results.
Ghana’s economy had problems in recent times and as of 2016, the economy was not in a very good shape. For this reason, the beginning of 2017 saw the implementation of programmes and policies by the Akufo-Addo administration aimed at arresting the economic decline, restore confidence and propel some growth as a way of improving upon the welfare of the people.
ECONOMIC PROGRAMMES AND POLICIES
In fact, 2017 went very well. As a result, economic programmes and policies put in place began to yield results.
The years 2018 and 2019 also went well and by the end of 2019, the economy had begun to take a strong shape to the admiration of many Ghanaians and external observers many of whom praised the country for a good work done.
SUPPORT BY CENTRAL
In all this, the Central Bank had to lend relevant support to the government to encourage it to achieve its aim. This means that the Bank of Ghana has a crucial role to play to normalise economic conditions and ensure that there is effective growth in the economy.
If this is the case, then what role has the Bank of Ghana played so far to help the government realise its ultimate goal of economic growth in the Ghanaian economy?
SOUND ECONOMIC POLICIES
The year 2019 ended with some positive results as a result of sound economic policies being implemented by the Akufo-Addo administration. Some of the positive results are a decline in the rate of inflation and robust build-up of International reserves of the Central Bank.
If inflation keeps rising, the value of the currency would be thrown out of gear and as a result economic management would become difficult to carry out. Thus, the decline in the rate of inflation poses a good opportunity for the country to rebuild its economic system and forge ahead towards the realisation of its economic goals.
INTERNATIONAL RESERVES
Similarly, the building up of International reserves by the Central Bank was positive since it helped to strengthen the economy. Without International reserves, the least disturbance in the economy would throw things out of gear and the country may find it difficult to support itself over a period of time.
The implication here is that increase in International reserves at the Central Bank tells the Bank of Ghana to support economic programmes over a higher period than would usually be the case if international reserves are depleted.
It is equally important to note that all these methods help to establish stability in the rate of exchange. Stability in the exchange rate helps to strengthen the economy and enables the country to withstand pressures from external sources.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
As the country was cruising along appropriate and desirable economic path due to sound economic programmes by the government and rigidly supported by the Bank of Ghana, the world was struck all of sudden by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic affected all countries including Ghana.
The impact of COVID-19 was tremendous. To begin with, it affected commodity prices. Secondly, tourism and International capital flow were also affected.
FIGHTING FOR FINANCIAL INTEGRITY
To be able to withstand these pressures, there was the need for the Bank of Ghana, under the governorship of Dr. Ernest Addison to fight hard towards maintaining financial integrity. In addition, there was the need for tremendous financial and economic growth. The period saw increase in mobile money transaction.
As a result of all these, the country began to experience confidence in financial sector earnings, liquidity and capital adequacy all indicating significant improvement of economic trends in the country.
The Bank of Ghana need not rest on its oars. This means that it must exert constant regulatory and policy attention to mitigate any risk that may arise. The quality of the governorship of Dr. Ernest Addison is good because he is ensuring the implementation of policies that are likely to ward off any weak economic segment that may be seen in the financial sector.
GOVERNORSHIP OF DR ADDISON
It is under the governorship of Dr. Addison that the Bank of Ghana was able to identify any weaknesses in the banking sector and take drastic measures to overturn the non-performance of some of the banks leading to the revocation of licences.
The weak banks exhibited symptoms such as “poor asset quality, lack of profitability, loss of capital, excessive leverage, excessive risk exposure, poor conduct and liquidity concerns” as stated by Dr Addison in the 2020 annual dinner of the Chartered Institute of Bankers held at the Accra International Conference Centre on November 28, 2020.
All these indicate that without the role of the governor of the Bank of Ghana and his officers, the programme of the government would not be able to achieve its purpose.
If this is the case, then Dr. Addison needs to be highly commended together with his hardworking team so that they will always be encouraged to come out with good programmes and policies to keep matters going as expected.
By Dr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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