NPP’s economic stability laudable – Kwame Pianim

Economist, Kwame Pianim has commended the NPP administration for stabilizing the economy within its first three years in office.

According to him, the government has been able to implement policies that have transformed the economy from where it was about three years ago.

Speaking in an interview with Citi News on a wide range economic issues, the renowned economist said the government needs to be applauded for its strategies thus far.

“Fundamentally, we’ve done significantly well. I think the Ministry of Finance and the cabinet has done very well in stabilizing the economy,” he told Umaru Sanda Amadu.

The NPP administration inherited an economy which recorded a growth of 3.44 percent as at the end of 2016.

But this has been improved to a region of 8.14 and 6.26 percent between 2017 and 2018.

This notwithstanding, Mr. Pianim maintains that the government should be able to boost economic growth by diversifying the country’s exports.

This comes  at a time when for the first time in twenty years, Ghana recorded a $1.1bn trade surplus in 2018.

The economist explains that working to tap into opportunities other than the export of gold, cocoa and oil which have been traditional exports, will improve on the achievements so far made.

Mr. Pianim is however of the view that the government can renew the confidence among the Ghanaian public if it is able to assure them of bringing persons whose actions may directly or indirectly hamper the gains chalked so far.

“It is the Ghanaian people that are going to give the verdict, but some of these issues we are not addressing them properly. So if we set up an assets recovery trust, distressed banks asset recovery trust, then Ghanaians will know that the monies that we are paying to them, we are going to sell the assets of these people who stole their Fixed Deposits to repay,” he remarked.