Government To Introduce Eight New Interventions To Fix Economy – Ofori -Atta
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has stated that government will in the coming days roll out eight new inventions under the COVID-19 Alleviation and Revitalization of Enterprise Support initiative also known as the Ghana CARES program to fix the Ghanaian economy.
This comes after members of the #FixTheCountry movement expressed displeasure over successive government’s failure to improve the living standards of Ghanaians.
Reacting to concerns of the group at a press briefing on Sunday, 9th May 2021, Mr. Ofori-Atta explained that despite the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, government’s resolve to fixing the country remains unbroken.
“Over the following weeks, I have been following the healthy conversation that started following the #Fixthecountry [hashtag]. I actually have met the conveners to understand and explore collective solutions over what the conveners describe as a failure on the part of successive governments to improve the lives of Ghanaians. Full start in this month, we are rolling out over eight additional interventions under the Ghana CARES Obaatanpa programme. This will be in areas such as agriculture, tourism, trade, digitization, science and technology, housing and financial services,” he said.
He also downplayed assertions that the Akufo-Addo administration’s recent touting of economic ambition and progress is in response to the #FixTheCountry protests.
“This is not a government working in reflex. Certainly, this is a government that has always had clarity on the plan that we have for the nation, and we can see the strength of the economy from 2017 to 2020,” he added.
He further suggested that the current angst about the standard of living has been influenced by the coronavirus pandemic adding that because of the pandemic, the Akufo-Addo administration had been “stretched to the seams.”
“We can’t pretend that it [the coronavirus pandemic] has not occurred. We have to be clear on how we had to readjust our economic programmes to be able to save lives first because the sanctity of life of any citizen cannot be compromised,” Mr. Ofori-Atta said.
The #FixTheCountry protestors have been demanding government action on a number of challenges including unemployment, erratic power supply, the infrastructure deficit among others.