President John Mahama has said he is prepared to pay the political price for the austerity measures he and his government have taken to fix the economy.
Mr Mahama told Aljazeera in an interview played Sunday night that his austerity measures are necessary to salvage the entire economy.
“There are some things you’ll have to do when you are faced with economic challenges and it needs to put on the brakes and it involves austerity.
“People are going to react when you are going through austere periods and I think that it is normal: even in developed countries when you have to take certain measures to arrest some economic challenges, people feel the pinch and they will react naturally to that,” Mr Mahama said.
INTERVIEWER: And there’s a political price to be paid, normally, for austerity measures as so many European leaders have found:
The President’s response was: “I think that you must be prepared to pay any price to ensure that the economy of your country is returned to stability and growth and that is what I’ve been doing.”
He said he has had to take tough measures for the greater good of the country.
“There are measures that are difficult to take, but as a leader, I’ve had to take them in order to protect the economy and ensure that the economy continues to grow and create jobs for young people,” he justified.
“The alternative is unacceptable, and so better to get some street protests against measures you are taking and protect the overall economy than let it crash and create a more politically unstable economy going forward and that’s what we’ve been going through.”
The President, nonetheless believes Ghanaians will understand the situation and the necessity for those difficult measures when things are properly explained to them.
“I think that if you are explaining to the people what you are doing, then our people have the capacity to understand what is happening and I do believe that we can get the plug-in, a buy-in from our people.”
