Akufo-Addo’s ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mere rhetoric – Amissah Arthur

Former Vice President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, has described the government’s much-touted ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mantra as a mere rhetoric.
According to him, the government is yet to provide adequate information about the mantra, and this raises uncertainty about what exactly it seeks to achieve.
Speaking on Accra-based Citi FM, the economist said the mantra “has not been defined” for the understanding of the public to enable them to support it.
“I’m comfortable if ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is saying we will only borrow for capital investment and not recurrent 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,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo since assuming office has reiterated his resolve to grow the country’s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence, and ensuring its development using local resources.
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.
The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, who is the head of the country’s economic management team, has been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring all key government projects aimed at making the concept of ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ a reality, but his predecessor, believes the government has not done enough to show it is serious about the concept.
Amissah Arthur insists that the government must provide timelines for the achievement of the policy to make it measurable.
“It 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’t have money, we will reject it because we have to pay on our own,” he said.