Mr Benjamin Kofi Quarshie, Group Chairman of Allied Consortiums, South Africa, has disclosed that some decisions including the banking sector clean-up that led to the collapse of several banks in Ghana are some significant decisions that have led to the country’s economic challanges.
The Group Chairman believes these decisions are politically influenced as he reiterated that a better approach could have prevented the dire consequences currently being experienced in the country’s economy.
“The banking sector clean up at the time was a good decision but did it prove right? Reading article 4 of the report you would also have to put your mind to the fact that if the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana had done things in a more prudent way and a different perspective, we would not be experiences the stories we are hearing today.
“We have always proved and very obvious that political decisions affect businesses and so when you have a country that went into collapsing banks with that kind of huge sums of money and banks have been collapsed other banks have been formed the economy had to suffer from these kind of decisions.”
Mr Quarshie
According to Mr Quarshie, he has always maintained that the government would have done better by not collapsing the banks because to him, people got laid off, families had to struggle and once one aspect of the economy faces such challenges it becomes imperative that all the other sectors would have problems.
“So, I believe these kinds of policies, not only with the collapse of banks but for example going back to the IMF, when we started as a country, we were told that we were never going back to the IMF and it was a good thing that we left the IMF Programme but here we are back again.
“So, you ask yourself why? and it means that there were certain things we did along the line that did not inure to the benefits of the Ghanaian economy.”
Mr Quarshie
Stressed Economy Era
Mr. Benjamin Kofi Quarshie, bewailed over Ghana’s economic situation as he described it as a ‘stressed economic era’.
The goup chairman further reiterated that, the current economic situation in the country has had a rippling effect on individuals and businesses. According to him, these are outcomes of government decisions, which he believes to be short-sighted.
“It has been scary and there is no doubt about that or any argument to that. Our economy has been in a dire stress that it is affecting everybody. I think when it is good it affects everyone and businesses as well and with the current state it is also affecting all of us.
“I think our economy has gotten here because of certain decisions that our leaders had taken that were short sighted. But I believe that as a country we need to come around, rally together and ensure that our economy gets back on track.”
Mr Quarshie
Mr Quarshi, however, charged the government and Ghanaians in general to recess, reflect and improve the current situation in the new year.
Meanwhile, since the beginning this year, some government authorities have touted Ghana’s economy to recover from inflation, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war after the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta reached Staff-Level Agreement on a $3 billion, three years Extended Credit Facility with the IMF.
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