“We’ll strictly enforce prudence and responsibility in the management of public finances” – Mahama

If John Dramani Mahama is chosen president in 2024, he has declared that stabilizing the economy and promoting inclusive development will be his administration’s top priorities.

To alleviate Ghanaians’ suffering, he promised to do this by putting the different indicators under control.
“We will strictly enforce prudence and responsibility in the management of public finances by cutting out waste and ostentation, which have become common place under this administration. Together, we will build the Ghana we want,” he said at his campaign launch in the Volta region on Thursday, 2 March 2023.
“We shall restore faith in our almost collapsed financial system and embark on sweeping reforms at the Bank of Ghana.

“We shall actively pursue policies to ensure robust local participation in our banking, financial, telecommunications, mining, agriculture, agribusiness and manufacturing sectors.”
This, he said, will be based on his government’s strategy to expand the economy and give young people stable jobs.

Mr. Mahama added that his future administration will engage in the economy’s productive sectors, such as agriculture, industry, technology, digitilization, and tourism, in order to promote development and create jobs for the throngs of young people who are progressively losing hope.

“With the limited fiscal space we are likely to inherit because of the mismanagement of the economy under NPP, a new NDC Government will give priority to continuing and completing abandoned and ongoing projects rather than rushing to commence new ones,” Mahama said.

He further assured that he would assemble and operate the leanest but most efficient government under the fourth republic.

“We will reduce, significantly, the size of government. As I announced in my Ghana We Want address at UPSA late last year, I will form a government of less than 60 ministers and deputy ministers of state. I will initiate and undertake the most far-reaching constitutional, political and governance reforms under the fourth republic aimed at restoring confidence in our democracy and governance systems while making life easier and better for our people.”

“The payment of ex-gratia to members of the executive will be scrapped. The necessary Constitutional steps to take this will start in earnest in 2025. We will also persuade members of the other arms of government to accept its removal.”

He also pledged to deal with “issues pertaining to the exercise of powers of the president, proper separation of powers, strengthening of Parliament, restoring the independence of the judiciary, independent and quasi-state institutions, and depoliticizing them” in order to rebuild public trust in government institutions.

“These will take the centre stage of the new administration,” Mr Mahama stated.
The moment has arrived, in Mr. Mahama’s opinion, for Ghanaians to demand proper accountability from the politicians they choose.

Only a new party in power will be able to accomplish this responsibility, he claimed.

“We must clean the Augean stables and rid them of the filth and corruption. The anti-corruption [agencies] will be given unfettered space to do their work. The days of the infamous ‘clearing agent’ will be well and truly over,” Adding that “but to guarantee efficiency and professionalism at this effort, institutions of state would be enabled to be autonomous in their work,” Mr. said at the beginning of his campaign in the Volta Region today, Thursday, 2 March 2023.

State-owned businesses will not be a source of income for political appointees, Mr. Mahama said, noting his position as president.

Source: Ghanatodayonline.com