Pressure Group, OccupyGhana has recommended the ten solutions to the current economic turmoil that has resulted in a debt exchange programme.
In a statement issued by the pressure group, it noted that under the Akufo-Addo government’s watch, Ghana has become broke under circumstances that were avoidable and inexcusable, and unpardonable.
In its argument, they mentioned that the although the government would seek to blame the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war for this disaster, it cannot evade or avoid the fact that our debt was unsustainable even before these external factors kicked in and compounded an already precarious situation.
OccupyGhana, therefore, recommended ten things that the government may act upon.
“First, reduce the number of government appointees by at least fifty percent. This may be achieved by consolidating several ministries and slashing the number of political appointees (ministerial and otherwise), such as all deputies and the like, and entrusting public servant-technocrats with the responsibility of supporting substantive heads.”
“Second, let the president pay income taxes, too. We should remove the tax exemption granted to the president under article 68(5) of the Constitution. While the actual savings from this might not be much, it is hugely significant and relevantly symbolic. The president must lead by example. When he pays his taxes, then he can demand that the rest of us pay taxes too,” the statement said.
It further mentioned the suspension of all expenditures on the proposed National Cathedral.
“Whatever arguments there might have been to support spending now-non-existent money on the proposed National Cathedral, have been eroded by the dire straits that the nation faces. Our current situation makes the continued commitment in the budget to spend GHS80M on the cathedral, look like a vanity project. We lose nothing by suspending expenditure on that project until the economy recovers.”
“A government that is pleading with Ghanaians to bail it out of a self-afflicted disaster, must ‘bear fruits worthy of repentance,’” it concluded.
