Accra, May 15, 2017/—Ghana’s Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has delivered the keynote address of the government’s maiden National Policy Summit (NPS) in Accra with an assurance that the formalisation of the Ghanaian economy is on course.
He told business leaders, investors, ministers of state, government officials, among others at the summit opened in Accra today that: “Fundamentally, this government wants to formalize this economy with financial inclusion, national identification and national digital address system as the three pillars we want to achieve in 2017″.
Estimates are that the informal economy in the West African second largest economy is worth over US$10 billion a year. Over 80 per cent of the workforce is part of the informal economy, and that runs the gamut from people selling vegetables at the side of the road to major corporations like mobile phone companies that do all of their business through informal kiosks that are stands at the side of the road.
The Ghana Statistical Service estimates that 86.1 per cent of all employment is found in the informal economy. 90.9 per cent of women and 81 per cent of men are working in the country’s uncontrolled, regulated or standardised informal sector.
The informal economy in Ghana is about two-thirds the size of its formal economy. It is largely composed of people distributing goods from other countries — rather than producing their own marketable goods.
But Dr Bawumia is confident that the government would be able to change this informal economy to a formalise one.
He noted that a formalized economy represents the single most important transformation of the economy of any country.
To this end, he said the new national identification programme would start in September, this year, while the national digital address system would take off in July, 2017 to capture everybody in the country.
“The third pillar of the formalisation of the economy is the interoperability which has never been achieved among the mobile money operators. But it will be achieved this year under the current government”, Dr Bawumia added.
If these are done, there will be a major transformation of the country’s economy, he stated.
Touching on macroeconomic stability, the Vice president said the objective of the government is to maintain and sustain macro-economic stability.
“The practice where the country will move “two steps forward and four steps backwards” will not continue under the Akufo-Addo presidency. This country has never had a long period of sustained macro-economic stability with “inflation sustainably low and the currency sustainably stable,” Dr Bawumia assured.
“The whole element of fiscal discipline is so key,” he said, adding, “if that is not taken seriously the whole economy will crumble.”
According to him, Ghana is aiming to become the most business friendly country in Africa to provide the opportunity for the private sector to create more jobs for the country’s youth.
The 2017 budget presented in March shows the government preparedness to implement its promises made to the people before the election, Dr Bawumia said.
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta said that the ministry was committed to delivering the pledge of the President to build the most business friendly and people friendly economy.
“In pursuit of that, in our first budget which I presented to the Parliament on behalf of the President, we resolved to “to sow the seeds for growth and jobs”, he stated.
African Eye Report
