Member of the NDC Communications Team, Gabriella Tetteh, has stated that President Akuffo Addo and his administration have nothing better to offer Ghanaians in the remaining two years of governance.
She described the President and his government as clueless and useless and urged Ghanaians to endure these hardships in order for the democratic system of the country to be sustained. She noted that the government was claiming to move from taxation to production, but it has rather opened doors for the importation of goods.
“A government that was claiming taxation to production comes into office and for some strange reason, opens the flood gate to importers to flood our market, give them tax exemptions in the name of bench mark values which makes their product cheaper compared to local production.”
Gabriella Tetteh
Despite all the challenges faced by Ghanaian producers, she stated that they did not waver, rather they were consistent in their production of rice. According to her, the local producers did this with the hope that the government will implement some policies that will favor them to be able to grow their market and cut down on importation.
Speaking on the production of rice, she noted that in the year 2019-2020, there was a rice glut and the Minister for Food and Agriculture assured the people that he had met with the importers to offtake our local rice.
“The Minister for Agric assured us that by 2022, 2023 we should be self sufficient in rice. So, where from this huge import bill in rice?”
Gabriella Tetteh
This Government Has No Plan
Nana Yaa Jantuah, General Secretary of the CPP, stated that the current government of Ghana has no plan for the nation and it was still going through ‘potty training’ after six years of governing and has not reached the level where it can do much for the nation.
She said that the President is not in a good company, referring to his ministers and economic management team. Nana Yaa indicated that if the President was in good company, his people would have prepared him to talk properly and not look down on the people before he gave his speech on Sunday.
“If you conclude by saying that “sika mp3 dede” it means that everything that we are saying, we are making noise, hollow noises, noises that make no sense…What has been done in terms of import substitution to ensure that these imports are reduced drastically?”
Nana Yaa Jantuah
According to the CPP General Secretary, if a conscious effort is made to produce goods locally, foreign goods will naturally be taken out, adding that the cost of doing business in the country now is very expensive.
“Even the raw materials that are used to produce products, like the poultry are all imported. They are dollar-denominated. Why don’t government set up industries that will feed local industries like the poultry industry, like tomato farmers? You see tomato gets rotten on farms because feeder roads are bad.”
Nana Yaa Janutah
She noted that the Ghanaian currency is ‘wobbly’ and cannot stand on its feet which is a clear indication that the government does not know what it is about and is clearly out of touch.
The one -district-one factory(1D1F) program in the terms of this government, she said, is a business support scheme and not an industrialization process as developed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
