Country Director for Ghana at the World Bank, Pierre Laporte, says government should be mindful of policies it makes to revive the economy, taking into consideration the plight of the poor and vulnerable in the country.
He stated that the less privileged have already been negatively impacted by the effects of COVID-19 therefore any steps by government aimed at revitalizing the economy should be considered carefully.
Speaking at the New Year School at the University of Ghana on Tuesday, the World Bank Boss asked government to prioritize measures that will improve the standard of living of its citizens.
“Inflation in Ghana has exceeded the Central Bank’s target since October last year, largely driven by global inflation. There are many reasons to be concerned [because] inflation is a terrible thing for the economy, especially for the poor.”
“Our focus will continue to be to advocate for protecting the poor; for instance, through targeting social safety net programmes,” Mr. Laporte suggested.
He bemoans Ghana’ s rate of borrowing saying, “notwithstanding Ghana’s strong recovery growth, it came into the crisis [Covid-19] with certain degree of fiscal fragility, with a level of borrowing that wasn’t much with the required level of revenue mobilization. I am sympathizing with my colleague Finance Minister in the need for Ghana to take the necessary steps to boost revenue mobilization.”
Pierre Laporte also charged Ghana to focus on enhancing and improving upon its health care systems as it is very crucial to the country’s ability to improve upon its fiscal strength.
“Secondly, boosting the productive capacity of the economy which is the most sustainable way of dealing with inflation. Ghana needs to bolster the responsiveness of the health system. Ghana’s population will continue to grow and that means it’s imperative to provide quality education,” he added.