An economist, Dr. Samuel Worlanyo Mensah has proposed what he calls practical economic measures to be considered in the 2023 Budget Statement and Financial Policies to help bring the country’s economy back on track.
According to him, there were little practical solutions in the previous budgets which has brought the country to its current state.
Government is expected to present the 2023 Budget Statement and Financial Policies to Parliament on Thursday, 24th November, 2022.
Speaking on the Day Break Upper East Show ahead of the budget presentation, the renowned Economist said the government should concentrate on the technical areas that will help the country increase productivity.
He said, “I’m expecting the next budget to be more economically practical and they should try as much as practical to move away from this grammatical budget where there’s no kind of research and just big English, it doesn’t translate to anything. They should concentrate much on the technical areas that will help to increase productivity and industrialise as a country.”
“I believe the budget should focus more on agric businesses, Agric processing and let’s strive more on pharmaceutical industry, petrochemical industry, the digital economy. It should also look at the local technologies. Let’s look at how we can be able to support traders associations to be able to produce some of the commodities that they import into this country.”
On the banking sector, he said there should be deliberate measures to revamp the Local banks because they offer loans to Small holder businesses.
He said ” we should be able to revamp our local banks. The local banks that were largely affected in the banking and financial sector clean up, you realise that they [local banks] normally support the small and medium scale enterprises. Once they [local banks] are no longer in business and COVID-19 also came now our local businesses are struggling to have access to credit. So the government should reconsider some of the local banks that were collapsed.”
He continued to propose some solutions to deliver strong education in the second cycle institutes.
“Government should also look at the comprehensive program as far as free education is concerned. I think it’s a toll on the government and I don’t believe the government will have the ability to sustain that. What the government needs to do now is to make technical and vocational education free so that we can champion the technical education that will create its own jobs. Then those in the government schools, the government will subsidise by paying your school fees and you pay your boarding fees or your feeding fees. I think with that way government will find itself some relief.”
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz| Samuel Adagom|Ghana
