Africa’s topmost Education Policy Think Tank, IMANI has advised the government of the day to focus on realistic approach in solving realistic problems in the country.
The call was made when IMANI Africa assessed the first 365 days of President Nana Akuffo-Addo’s tenure in Accra. The event was attended by government representatives, stakeholders, policy makers, representatives from political party.
Ms. Barbara Andoh, Research Associate of IMANI, presented the report, which was derived from the assessment of the 2017-2018 budget statement. The report, generated from a purely qualitative approach, is titled “IMANIFESTO.”
Ms. Andoh said “government has achieved some reasonable progress in the past year but should desist from just fulfilling campaign promises and solve real problems.”
She continued: “And one thing that we noticed is that this is going to happen if we are able to coordinate all policies and programmes and initiatives so that our Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) and all stakeholders concerned are speaking to one another. Thoughtful coordination among MDAs should be a priority.”
Further, she said: “overall, government has achieved reasonable progress towards implementing some of the promises made in its 2016 Manifesto, however, we must be weary of just ticking off promises from checklist without solving actual problems.”
According to the report, during the first year of the Akufo-Addos government, an overall macro stability was achieved, with its key components being exchange rate, inflation rate.
Economy
The assessment on the economy is that the government in its 2016 Manifesto indicated to fulfill 146 promises, and the main class of these policies was to create a business-friendly and people-friendly economy, to create jobs and prosperity for all Ghanaians.
There was a relatively stable Ghana cedi in the year, with 4.0 cumulative depreciation in 2017, compared to 4.3% during the same period in 2016. Inflation rate is noted to have fallen from 15.4% at the end of 2016 to 11.8% at the end of 2017. The inflation target for 2017 was however missed.
Concerning debts, there was a reduction in this area, from 73% to GDP in 2016, to 68% to GDP in 2017. The general prove of macro economy stability is that the country has received positive rate from major credit rating agencies.
Energy
The report indicated that government achieved a pragmatic balance between debt restriction and net debt accumulation, documented standardized guidelines for projects selection and catalogued a number of projects per year under IPEP.
Agriculture sector
On the other hand, performance in the agriculture sector was rated as “fairly good”, given the successful implementation of a number of programmes such as the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), and the significant reduction in the prices of selected agricultural inputs.
The report however mentioned that there was slow pace in implementing projects relating to irrigation and fisheries.
Job creation
The report, among others, revealed that delivery on promises relating to job creation was not encouraging. “Despite the numerous promises targeted at creating massive employment, there is little evidence to suggest the actual number of jobs created in the first year,” it said.
