Social Relief for All -JAK

THE UNEMPLOYED, schools and health care facilities will benefit from debt relief of $96 million, President John Agyekum Kufuor said yesterday.

He said government has started the process of disbursing an initial sum of money to provide skill training for the jobless, improve schools and upgrade health care facilities in the country.

The President made this disclosure at the National Economic Dialogue (NED) annual event at the National Theatre in Accra.

Exactly one year ago government held a National Economic Dialogue as a strategic gathering of key stakeholders in the country to begin a consensus building that would accelerate national economic growth and development.

Yesterday's programme was part of the proposed annual session to review the implementation of the recommendations made at that NED conference.

President Kufuor observed that some headway had been made, adding that most of the recommendations that emerged from the Dialogue coincided with government's own plans.

The macro-economic environment, for instance, he said, has been stabilized substantially.

Inflation has come down from a hike of 42% to about 15% currently, he said, whilst the stability of the cedi which was in doubt has maintained a respectable and economically reasonable exchange rate, bringing back confidence to the nation's financial institutions and businessmen.

According to the President, government has since cut back on domestic borrowing, helping to ease the pressure on rates and thus adding value to money.

Interest rates, which stood at around 50% last year, he stated, are similarly following the downward trend of inflation.

President Kufuor who spoke on a wide range of achievements made so far by his administration over the past year, said with regard to priority in infrastructure development that work has started on the Accra-Kumasi highway, adding that work on the Mallam-Kasoa road and on other equally important roads is due to start by September.

On agriculture, he said rice production has been increased by 35% from 234,000 metric tonnes to 316,000 metric tonnes this past year.

Despite the President's encouraging words the Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, had earlier indicated that there was hard work ahead. 'All of us,' he said, 'have work to do.'

He went on: 'The implementation of the National Economic Dialogue recommendations is a responsibility of all of us and not just for government. 'We must make the effort together and share in the results together.'

The Minister also reminded his audience that since the 1960s Ghana had had at least four development plans.

In his opinion they failed because 'we have been short on implementation.' As a result the people of a resource-rich country have been reduced to poverty.

He promised, however, that past trends would be reversed. 'No plan that we work on will go untouched, not reviewed and not implemented,' he said.