Financial analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford says the interest rate forum which was organized by the Trade and Industry Ministry was a waste of time.
[contextly_sidebar id=”X4m4OjJMI0gZ8JnVfk5O2bg4R4d8plIu”]“It was a total and complete waste of tax payers’ time and money,” he said.
He explained that despite the number of experienced persons and economists assembled to find solutions to the problem, no new solutions were propounded.
The Ministry of Trade in collaboration with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) organized a forum on the high cost of credit and its implications for Ghana.
The forum was aimed at finding effective and lasting solutions to the high interest rates and high pricing regime in Ghana.
A committee was later set up to look into the issued discussed.
Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, Casely-Hayford indicated that he only attended the forum because “I was curious whether or not we were going to provide a different solution and whether there will be an answer to the problem. I heard the same old story.”
“We’ve heard it so many times…we had so many people who have been involved in trying to solve this problem for so long and yet, we couldn’t come to a conclusion.”
He was convinced that the problem will never be resolved if “the solution that was provided is that all of this is a ripple because of government’s economic mismanagement and we are in a situation where we have over borrowed, we have under revenue, we have over expenditure, etc and therefore we are leaning in the domestic market to raise cash through short-term treasury bills and that if we can get government to stop this, then the solution is found.”
Casely-Hayford pointed out that if Ghanaians are going to wait for the government to “actually get up and realize that they cannot keep on deficit budgeting and we have to cut our coat according to our size and that is the way we are going to make things work and come with different ideas to the table, I don’t see how we are going to get out of this.”
The Financial analyst was of the view that Ghana “can seriously in its own be a different story altogether and with a mega success story.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan