Move away from ‘free lunch’ mentality and take hard decisions – Joe Jackson to government

Chief Operation Officer of Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson has tasked Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta to take hard decisions in stabilizing the Ghanaian economy.

Speaking on TV3 New Day ahead of the midyear budget review, Joe Jackson said government ought to take tough and bold decisions regardless of the backlash it may come with.

“I do not see any way out, we need to face our reality and take hard decisions. I am expecting hard decisions… We seem to think there is a free lunch somewhere and that we can have everything without paying anything.”

According to Joe Jackson, government is broke, and they must admit it and work towards stabilizing the economy.

He noted that the challenge with government’s plans to introduce new taxes has to do with the way government communicates its plans.

The Dalex Finance COO said government has failed to properly coordinate and implement the projects and policies outlined to generate revenue, and this has led to the poor performance of the economy.

“Go back to the first State of the Nation Address in 2017; the President said we need to formalize the economy, but look at the National ID, we are still playing hide and seek. Ghana post has been done, but it is a silo. It has no bearing on anything we do,” he stated.

He noted that a lot of the projects implemented by government have been rendered meaningless because of the lack of proper integration.

“Let us see some hard decisions, let us see an integrated plan to fix the economy. The problems have been diagnosed, but who is sitting there and integrating all those projects.”

“When we talk about widening the tax, what does the TIN for instance do, what is the link between my TIN and what I do with my businesses?” Joe Jackson questioned.

According to Joe Jackson, government’s disjointed initiatives as well as its approach to implementing them form part of problems hindering economic growth.

“What I expect to happen is that there are a few projects that have been announced, bring them together and execute them.”

Joe Jackson also expects the midyear budget review on Thursday, July 19, to contain some tough decisions and clearly cut out plans to stabilise the economy.