Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely Hayford has strongly criticized former Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur for describing government\u2019s \u2018Ghana Beyond Aid\u2019 agenda as a mere rhetoric.<\/p>\n
The former Vice President had indicated that government\u2019s Ghana Beyond Aid mantra raises questions about what it wants to specifically achieve, given that adequate information had not yet been provided.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”aRxXLbtvFDbaArTRk4PyOSYNz4jDRmCK”]\u201cI\u2019m comfortable if \u2018Ghana Beyond Aid\u2019 is saying we will only borrow for capital investment and not the current obligation. But the problem has not been defined for me to understand it. It is just the rhetoric. It sounds nice, but what goes into it? People will support it, if they understand what the objective is. As at now, everybody is left to define it how he understands it, and then to decide to support it or to oppose it,\u201d Mr. Amissah Arthur had suggested.<\/p>\n
Casely Hayford on Citi FM<\/strong>\u2019s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issue<\/strong><\/em>, however, rubbished Amissah Arthur\u2019s suggestions, saying he was only being disingenuous.<\/p>\n He questioned why Amissah Arthur had suddenly become a vocal critic of the NPP government when his party could not implement viable policies despite being in power for 8 years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very disingenuous for Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur after having been a Deputy Minister of Finance, a governor of the Bank of Ghana and a Vice President of a country in charge of Economic Affairs to come and say he does not understand what the \u2018Ghana Beyond Aid\u2019 agenda means,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n ‘Amissah Arthur was fair’<\/strong><\/p>\n President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe in a rebuttal, however, disagreed with Casely Hayford\u2019s stance, saying the Vice President was only seeking clarity\u00a0when he questioned what the mantra stood for.<\/p>\n He believes Amissah Arthur’s comments were “very fair.”<\/p>\n ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n President Akufo-Addo, since assuming office, has reiterated his resolve to grow the country\u2019s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence, and ensuring its development using local resources.<\/p>\n Nana Akufo-Addo, who has on various national and international platforms emphasized his belief that Ghana, like many other African countries, is endowed with enormous resources to guarantee its growth, recently caught global attention when he made a strong case for his position at an event which had French President Emmanuel Macron as a guest.<\/p>\n The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, who is the head of the country\u2019s economic management team, has been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring all key government projects aimed at making the concept of \u2018Ghana Beyond Aid\u2019 a reality, but his predecessor, believes the government has not done enough to show it is serious about the concept.<\/p>\n Amissah Arthur insists that the government must provide timelines for the achievement of the policy to make it measurable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is good to have a policy, but you must also have a time-frame. That after 10 years, even if someone offers to pay for AIDS medicine, because we don\u2019t have money, we will reject it because we have to pay on our own,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Marian Ansah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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