Nduom Pushes For Higher GDP

To achieve genuine poverty reduction in the Ghanaian society, Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation Minister, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, has affirmed the need for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country to grow by more than 7% annually.

This would subsequently cause an increase in the growth of the long-term strategy of government to 8% by 2007 and 10% by 2010, he explained.

Dr. Nduom was briefing Parliament on the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) and to solicit its role in the maintenance, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the strategy, yesterday.

According to him, the poverty situation of the country, which stood at 39% in the year 2000, would be revised downwards to 32% in 2004 as a short-term plan of the government.

To achieve this target, the GPRS, to be introduced over the three years period towards improving GDP, would be minimized by 5.0% and per capita growth from 1.4% in the year 2000 to 2.4% in 2004, the minister emphasized.

The Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation minister intimated that the reforms exhibited by the strategy would further affect other sectors of the economy, as the prevalence of poverty among food producers would decrease from 59% to 46%.

Continuing, he said, infant mortality would fall from 56 deaths per a thousand births to 40 deaths per a thousand births, further enhancing the gross primary school enrolment by 4% from 76% to 80%.

In view of the intended developments, Dr. Nduom noted that the Junior Secondary School (JSS) enrolment would be greatly affected by an increase of 5% from 60% to 65%.

He said with contributions from identifiable groups in the Ghanaian society, especially civil society, political groups and the private sector, GPRS would ensure the relevance of national challenges and aspirations.

According to Dr. Nduom, a recent data indicate that five out of ten regions in the country have more than 40% of its population stricken with poverty, adding "the worst affected being the three northern savannah regions.

He held that nine out of 10 people in the Upper East; eight out of 10 in the Upper West, seven out of 10 in the Northern region and five out of 10 in the Central and Eastern regions were classified as poor.

He further emphasized that in the 1990s, the Upper East, Northern and Central regions experienced extreme poverty situations as urban areas in the northern savannah also encountered significant increase in poverty during the period.

Explaining further, Dr. Nduom said food crop areas in the country have the highest incidence of poverty as 59% of people living in these areas fall within the poverty line due to lack of access to markets, high cost of inputs and low levels of economic infrastructure.

In another development, the august law making body amid criticisms from the Peoples National Convention (PNC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga, David Apasera, has approved an eight-member Ghanaian representative to the Economic of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament.

The resolution carried out by Parliament had 104 members for the resolution, 2 members against it and 6 abstentions.

Hon. Apasera objected to the membership of the Ecowas Parliament stating that his party has been marginalized.