Economist at the University of Ghana, Prof Godfred Bokpin, has expressed the need for government to expend resources to ensure the survival and growth of businesses in the country.

According to him, as it stands now, the economy does not support the growth of businesses. He revealed that the IMF, as indicated by President Akufo-Addo, “is not the immediate solution to all our problems”.

For that reason, Prof Bokpin indicated that government must look for ways to complement the program.

“First and foremost, the state does not exist for its comfort, the state must use all its powers to facilitate the growth of businesses because that is where job creation is going to come from. You can even look at tax from two perspectives – tax as an investment. So, there are countries that lower their taxes as a way of promoting businesses… The method we have chosen to restore debt sustainability is going to pose unnecessary hardships and we can avoid that.”
Prof Godfred Bokpin

Speaking on the theme: ‘The current economic situation and you’, today, June 20, 2023, Prof explained that the IMF as it is now, will not suddenly come and transform the economy. He highlighted that the IMF doesn’t have a single case study of a country that it has transformed economically.

In the time past, Prof Bokpin noted that Ghana used to be a shining example of IMF interventions, but has degraded to its current state. To address this, he underscored the essence of government critically assessing the broad fiscal policy frameworks of the IMF, and for it to decide on the specific interventions and strategies to achieve that.

“We said this way back in 2021, that we need to pre-empt what was coming… Assuming the President decides to go the way of Cote D’Ivoire in reducing the size of government to 31, we can save. There’s a way to do fiscal adjustments that preserves the cash flow of households and businesses, and we chose not to do that one. In fact, we could reach almost the same point in fiscal adjustment, if we decided that we were going to adopt a lean government…”
Prof Godfred Bokpin

Prof Bokpin highlighted that government must understand the crisis the country is in and consider expenditure cuts that will not hurt, but promote growth.

Merger of institutions to support economic growth

Commenting on whether the merger of institutions and ministries will necessarily help grow the economy, Prof Bokpin stated that it is achievable and that “if any President comes and says he can’t do that, he should resign”.

He revealed that the President needs to “declare war on this economy and marshal all the experts” to resolve the challenges the country is confronted with.

Justifying his stance, he indicated that in 2040, Ghana’s population is projected to reach 45 million, with 58% of that population being less than 30 years.

“As we speak, 1.6 million Ghanaians who are in the economically active age group are successfully unemployed. Out of that percentage, more than 300,000 of that are food insecure and multi-dimensionally poor; this trend, we should get worried because no one is safe. If you look at Ghana’s prime areas, we are surrounded by slums.”
Prof Godfred Bokpin

Prof Bokpin explained that for a good number of Ghanaians on the street, their prayer content is not peace, because increasingly, a large number of them are not sure where their next meal will come from.

“There are so many things you can delay- you can delay childbirth, you can postpone your marriage, you can disengage even after engagement. How long can you postpone hunger? This is the portion of increasingly large number of Ghanaians…”
Prof Godfred Bokpin