Divestiture of GCB is to improve management - JAK

President John Agyekum Kufuor has said that government's programme for the divestiture of the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) is to deepen its operations to become part of the international network of banks to support development projects.

He said government also seeks to improve the management and deepen resources for the bank through divesting some of its shares to draw in a strategic partner to launch the bank into venture capital to support the private sector.

President Kufuor said this when a delegation of Executive Directors of the World Bank led by Mr Kurt Bayer, Executive Director for 10 countries, paid a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu.

President Kufuor said government being conscious of the peoples' well being must move tactically on some of these issues. He appealed to officials of the World Bank to explain issues and the state of the economy in simple language that could be well understood by the ordinary Ghanaian in terms of improvement of the macro-economic stabilisation.

"You have to use simple language for the ordinary Ghanaian to understand the comments you make about the improvement in the economy on measures taken by the government.

"They complain about lack of money in their pockets but World Bank officials on visit to the country commend the government for improvement in the macro-economy.

"They suspect the Minister of Finance unilaterally impose the conditions and the government was at the beck and call of the Bank. Your comments are therefore, looked upon with suspicion when there is still high unemployment," he said.

President Kufuor said despite the improvement in the macro-economy, not being felt in the pockets of the ordinary Ghanaian, the World Bank has supported the government tremendously and recently approved 128 million dollars for the Poverty Reduction Strategy. He said with the difficulties facing the country, development partners were expected to appreciate that there was a limit the hardship people could endure.

On the Liberia crisis, President Kufuor said Ghana had been on the forefront to secure peace but it had not been easy for the sub-region to mobilise forces due to lack of financial and logistic support. He said an appeal had been sent to the UN Security Council and assistance was being sought from the international community, adding that anything other than an intervention force could bring peace to the country.

Mr Bayer said after discussions with the Economic Management Team and the Minister of Finance, the delegation realised that Ghana had been doing well towards macro-economic stabilisation. "Your team has done a good job. You have to keep working to maintain the momentum," he said.

Mr Bayer said unlike the 1990s, the government now had the political will to ensure that expenditure was not exceeding revenue generation, adding that the delegation was confident there had been good signs of economic recovery. He said assistance offered by the Bank was not for the government but for the people to have improved standard of living, easy access to health care delivery, better education and provision of potable water.

Mr Bayer noted that growth rate had increased, inflation and consumer price were high and interest rates should come down. He said all these economic indices had to be improved from the medium to the long-term period for the ordinary Ghanaian to feel the impact of the improvement in the macro-economy. Bayer is Executive Director of Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey.