J.H. Mensah leads discussion on budget

Senior Minister Joseph Henry Mensah has said despite the bold efforts by government to revive the economy, it would endure a long period of convalescence because of the seriousness of the problems.

"Unless the tax base is broadened with revenue generation at a much faster rate than what we are doing now, the nation will be in trouble," he said at a seminar on the 2003 Budget held in London.

A statement from the Ghana High Commission in London received in Accra quoted Mr Mensah as saying that to reverse the trend there was the need to expand the base of public finance to enable the Government to provide the required services.

It said issues raised by participants centred, among other things, on difficulties in clearing cheques, increase in prices of petroleum products, development of private public partnerships, the inefficiency of the telecommunications system, the need to take measures to increase local production of rice and poultry and measures being put in place to reduce poverty in the country.

Mr Mensah appealed to Ghanaians in the Diaspora in the finance sector to help build a strong finance base for the country and emphasised that without it industry would be handicapped.

He gave the assurance that all foreign accounts would be protected and announced that following Government's intervention the banks in the country had started paying interest on foreign accounts.

"I, therefore, urge you to consider increasing the level of your foreign accounts," he said.

On the proposed health insurance scheme, he said it would help eliminate the trauma of having to find money out of people's pockets for treatments they had not budgeted for.

He said although some people might think it was ambitious for a poor country such as Ghana to have a health insurance scheme, the alternative would have been worse for people who required hospital care but had avoided going there because of economic reasons.

With regard to the HIPC, he said there was no need for people to sneeze at it. He said the initiative had been beneficial, led to generous cancellation of debts by the donor community and the release of resources for development in vital sectors, such as health and education, especially in the rural areas.

Mr Kwesi Abeasi, Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, pointed out the Government was becoming more realistic with the national budget, a trend, which, he said, should give hope to Ghanaians.

"As realism is injected into the pricing of utilities, distortions in the economy would be minimised", he said.

"The reason why we did not succeed in the past is because the previous Government did not have the guts to take realistic decisions," he said.

"It is important for us to realise that when you have a Government that, at a risk of being unpopular, is prepared to take hard but necessary decisions, then we should all rally behind it."

Touching on investments, Mr Abeasi called on Ghanaians to help promote investment into the country by helping to create the right image and perception.