Govt,s Poverty reduction strategy is unfavourable

A Research Fellow of the Centre for Policy Analysis and Development, Dr. Charles Jebuni says the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy does not favour the poor. He has therefore suggested that instead of giving exemptions and phasing out the “cash and carry system” which form a substantial part of expenditure, we should identify common diseases related to our environment and offer free treatment for such ailments.”It is possible to identify diseases related to our environment, such as diarrohea, guinea worm, snake bites, malaria etc and make them free by providing the costs of those treatments”.

He argued that placing emphasis on the provision of facilities as is spelt out in the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) as a means to reducing poverty without ensuring its accessibility would be negative to the poor. Presently, the poor in society find it difficult to gain access to facilities and concessions, so ”More than 90 percent of the poor have no access to electricity and providing such facilities without improving their income base will be ineffective in alleviating their conditions” he stated.

Presenting a paper on “How Pro Poor Is the Expenditure Plan of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy” Dr.Jebuni said statistics available indicate that about 5% of total expenditures are provided for the vulnerable only 2% of the poor benefit from government transfers. For instance while poverty levels in the country reduced from 52% between 1998/99 to 40% in 1991/92 the Central, northern and Upper East regions experienced increases in poverty. This according to him was because the benefits of growth that reduced poverty were not equally shared.

The Research fellow suggests that since poverty is a rural phenomenon and rural areas are dominated by agricultural facilities, poverty is highest among farmers. Poverty alleviating strategies shouldtherefore focus on increasing productivity and incomes of crop farmers. Unfortunately however, he is not sure that the government’s medium term priorities and expenditure on the Strategy reflects the objectives and strategy of the long- term document. In fact to him, it appears they were imposed on the previous document.

The CDD scholar’s view was that the medium term priorities of the strategy were based on the president’s own priorities. Citing the various Special Initiatives, Dr. Jebuni thought none of them has a direct impact on the poor. He also disagreed with the notion that national resources should be equally distributed among the ten regions of the country.

Dr. Jebuni maintained that since poverty is more prevalent in some regions, distributing facilities equally among them would continue to make some regions poorer than others. The result would then be intra- regional migration with its attendant problems. “Constructing a model school in CapeCoast is not the same as constructing a model school in Wa, because Wa would need more schools” he argues.