Ghana's economy has outperformed peers' due to competent management of pandemic – Ken Ofori Atta boasts

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta says Ghana's economy has outperformed its peers due to competent management of the Covid-19 pandemic by the Akufo-Addo administration.

Presenting the Mid-Year Budget Review to parliament on July 29, 2021, Ken Ofori Atta said: "as a result of our competent management of the crisis situation, Ghana’s economy has outperformed its peers, recovering faster. After recording negative growth in the second and third quarters of 2020, the economy rebounded strongly in the last quarter of the year, continuing well into the first quarter of 2021."

He stated that leadership in countries over the world was being assessed by "the measures that individual countries and their respective leaders took to deal with the crisis" because "no country in the world had prepared for the crisis that unfolded."

Ken Ofori Atta said Ghana took responsible, innovative, decisive, and bold actions in tackling the crisis.

Citing some steps taken by the government positioning Ghana's economy to outperformed its peers, he said: "That is why, a year ago, on Thursday, 23rd July, 2020, I came before this House to present what I called “an extraordinary Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the 2020 Budget Statement and Economic Policy”, and secured more funds to provide an immediate and appropriate response to the severe economic impact of the pandemic. In addition, the 2021 Expenditure-in-Advance-of Appropriation presented to this House on 28th October, 2020, saw to the uninterrupted delivery of Government business in the first quarter of this year; and, the on-going implementation of the 2021 Budget and Economic Policy of Friday, 12th March, is driving the revitalising the economy in line with our theme of Completion, Consolidation and Continuity."

"With these approvals, we intervened with timely measures to help, particularly, households, schools, hospitals and businesses withstand the impact of the pandemic. Government provided direct transfers to households through food distribution and absorption of water and electricity bills. Tax waivers to frontline health workers and stimulus packages to small and medium-scale enterprises were also provided."

"Mr. Speaker, these interventions stabilised the situation, protected lives, supported businesses and preserved jobs which would otherwise have been lost. In fact, although the workload from the public sector had to be reduced in many cases, all through this COVID crisis, Government has never once embarked on any programme of laying off workers. Rather, we have continued to pay all workers and even proceeded to employ more in some critical areas such as Security and Health services."

 

 

The Ghana Statistical Service reports that overall GDP growth for first quarter 2021 was 3.1 percent. The growth was even better excluding oil at 4.6 percent. The Bank of Ghana Composite Index of Economic Activity (CIEA) attests to the strong growth recovery, with the index growing at 33.1 percent at the end of May 2021 compared to a contraction of 10.23 percent at the end of May 2020.