Franklin Cudjoe, the Founding President of IMANI Africa, has cautioned the National Democratic Congress (NDC) against prematurely assuming victory in the 2024 general elections.
He expressed a need to see well-defined interventions aimed at reducing Ghana’s reliance on borrowing and avoiding another IMF program by 2026. Ghanaians are scheduled to vote on December 7 to elect a new president and members of parliament.
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have commenced their election campaigns.
In a Facebook post, Mr Franklin Cudjoe said “Meanwhile, the major opposition party, the NDC, should not assume 2024 is a done deal. Some of us are yet to see properly quantified interventions that will reduce our reliance on borrowing ,and crucially how we may avoid another IMF program in 2026.
“There is a need for the NDC to coordinate and relate the many promises of creating employment and ascertain by an estimated figure the qualitative addition to GDP.”
He also mentioned that IMANI plans to release a concise analysis to the public and media, focusing on objective assessments of how the policies of the major political parties will impact the country.
This will be done regardless of the intensity of partisan debates in the coming days and weeks.
“As far as IMANI is concerned, there are three major risk factors to.our economy – rising public debt, persistent waste and leakages and slowing GDP growth, when combined together, strongly constricts the government’s capacity to sustain investment without unhinging other levers of the economy (‘fiscal leeway’); affects the delivery of projects on time and within budget (spending efficiency); and raises the cost of living, offsetting the gains of infrastructure as real incomes fall and the living conditions of people deteriorate (‘growth burden’), he said.
