Government officials have promised to strike a favorable agreement with the International Monetary Fund, according to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (IMF).
He asserted that discussions with the Bretton Woods institution will put the interests of the typical Ghanaian at the forefront, resuscitate the economy, and continue to strengthen it.
The President stated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had a history of helping Ghana out of difficult situations when speaking to the National Delegates Conference of the NPP at the Accra Sports Stadium on Saturday.
He cited how the Kufuor administration removed Ghana from the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, while the Akufo-Addo administration, in its first term, oversaw the nation’s exit from the IMF program that had been abandoned by the former president John Dramani Mahama’s administration.
I want to reassure the people of Ghana that we will negotiate a fair agreement with the IMF; a deal that will enable us to recover our economy and continue the process of creating an even stronger economy than we had before, he said.
According to him, the government would approach the negotiations with the best interests of the average Ghanaian at the forefront, just as it had done when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, when it had secured the jobs and salaries of public sector workers and offered free water and electricity to the populace.
At the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, the nation went into lockdown, forcing public sector employees to stay at home, some for as long as a year, but no one was fired or had their pay reduced, according to President Akufo-Addo.
He added: “That is the measure of the NPP for the working people in our country,” saying that the government paid in full salaries and offered free water and power for the entire nation to assist alleviate the situation.
He claimed that these were some of the issues that will direct the government’s discussions with the IMF.
“Our responsibility is to confront the difficulties confronting our people and find effective solutions to them, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” he stated.
The President reminded the audience that the NPP was elected while operating under “a stalled IMF programme inherited from the Mahama Administration.”
Nevertheless, he said that his administration put a lot of effort into leaving the program and was working to develop a strong and thriving economy when COVID-19 struck, bringing with it its consequences.
“With one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, our celebration was what allowed us to survive the COVID-19 epidemic. We’ve done it before, and I’m confident we’ll do it once more, he said.
He gave his party’s supporters the reassurance that the government would provide the framework necessary for the NPP to win the 2024 election thanks to the country’s robust economy.
“It is our historic responsibility to keep the NPP in power with a new leader and candidate, but with the same commitments, good governance, strong economic management, respect for human rights, and the rule of law,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo congratulated the leadership of organized labor for agreeing to the terms of the 15% cost of living allowance (CoLA) agreement the government made with organized labor.
He claimed that the deal had shown how the NPP cared about the issues of working people.
According to him, the congress elections were the culmination of a process that had begun with the selection of polling station executives, electoral area coordinators, constituency executives, and regional officers.
“God bless the New Patriotic Party,” he proclaimed, “because no political party in Ghana has demonstrated the organizational abilities and capacity like what we in the NPP have done.”
The President praised the party’s former National Chairman, Freddie Wosemewu Blay, who had previously served as a CPP member of parliament before switching to the NPP because he had “found virtue in the NPP and its worth and decided to join us.”
He said that during the NPP’s crisis in 2015, when some of its members tried to plant the seeds of strife and confusion, Mr. Blay intervened, took over as acting national chairman of the party, and guided it to victory in 2016.
Assuring the outgoing chairman that the party would never forget him, he said that Mr. Blay once more guided the party to victory in the 2020 elections as its National Chairman.
The election of the national leadership, according to former president John Agyekum Kufuor in a video message, will strengthen the party’s resolve to “break the eight.”
In line with the party’s history, he exhorted the members to conduct themselves democratically.
He claimed that in order to approach the 2024 elections as a very appealing political party and recruit supporters in order to win resoundingly, the NPP needed unity.
Former President Kufuor stated that Ghana “needs our party to bring it to prosperity and transformation, which must be the desire of all of us.”
