MEMBERS of the government’s economic management team and a group of experts have begun a three-day retreat at Akosombo, to design an economic blueprint for the four-year tenure of President John Evans Atta Mills.
Addressing the group at the opening of the programme yesterday, President Mills called for a fiscal policy that would support the country’s financial and development agenda for the next four years and beyond.
He said such a proposal should take into consideration the world economic and development strategies that could deliver the promises contained in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto.
He tasked the think tank to ensure that this year’s budget statement and fiscal policy covered not only the country’s financial and development agenda for the year but for the government’s entire first four-year term and beyond.
Such a budget proposal, he said, should take into consideration the country’s broad economic development strategies.
The four-day meeting is being attended by economic experts drawn from the various sectors of the economy, as well as from the other political parties, to examine the country’s economic situation with the view of coming out with a budget and financial policy that would address inherent problems for the growth of the economy.
The President said although the country’s development agenda would be based on the manifesto of the NDC, since his administration was for all Ghanaians, the aspirations of the other sections of the population as captured in the manifestos of the other political parties also required evaluation.
He said if such aspirations were found positive, complimentary and serving the wider course of the country’s development, they would be fused into the broader development agenda, adding, “My concept of inclusiveness includes human capital, intellectual resource and tested ideas.”
The President also stated that as the country searched for a compact and responsive financial and development programme based on the social democratic values of the NDC, the meeting should also pay significant attention to the values of justifiable continuity.
In that respect, President Mills suggested to the gathering that policies and programmes initiated by the NPP and were currently in the pipeline that supported positive national development must be thoroughly reviewed, preserved and made additional to the new initiatives that they would like to recommend.
President Mills further stated that all hands should be on deck, the reason for which not only card-bearing members of the NDC had been assembled for the job but also people from the other political parties, academia and industry, and explained that the purpose for such co-operation was to begin the formation of an alliance of patriotic partners to help drive the national development programme.
He gave the assurance that sections of the Ghanaian community not represented at the meeting would be called to join in subsequent exercises.
According to President Mills, the task ahead would not be easy looking at the economic difficulties that had been identified and that the budget must promote the private sector, make it possible for the new-found oil deposits to be exploited in such a way that would support the economy and also improve the living condition of the people.
The budget, according to him, must also be tailored to meet the current global economic downturn.
A member of the Transition Team, Mr P.V. Obeng, said the gathering was to come out with a development programme that would last for at least four years.
President Mills later on his way to Accra stopped briefly at Atimpoku and Kpong where he was mobbed by a large crowd, mostly hawkers.
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