The National Policy Summit hosted in Tamale came to a close on Tuesday. The summit, under the auspices of the Ministry of Information afforded the public opportunities to assess pro-poor policies and programmes such as the one village, one dam, free SHS Education, one district, one factory, planting for food and jobs among others.
The two day event brought together stakeholders including government officials, organized labour, traditional and religious authorities, people from academia and civil society representatives. Diamond News brings you a wrap of the two day event with additional files from journalist, Maxwell Suuk.
Here are some of the deliberations that took place. We also have some reactions from some of the participants.
The Nana Akuffo Addo government came into power with a lot of promises on its manifesto. 20 months down the lane, it has started implementing some of the projects and Ghanaians like Agnes Ganda, who works with ISODEC, a Civil Society Organization in Tamale thinks things are been done in a rush.
The director of NORSAAC, an NGO in Tamale, Mohammed Awal also thinks the government is biting more than it can chew based on the limited resources at hand.
Ghana’s total debt stock is about 72% of its GDP. Fuel prices have increased thereby affecting cost of living of the ordinary Ghanaian, Madam Gandaa adds.
The government explanations are now getting narrowed especially with some of the projects. In the beginning many Ghanaians were wondering how the government would finance those projects. The One district one factory, for example is to be driven by private investors with the state creating the enabling environment. Paul Osei Kuffuor is the team leader of CDD Northern Ghana.
So far only 18 factories have been constructed. On the Free Secondary Education, It is projected that government will spend up to 3.6 million Ghana cedis yearly to cater for the needs. For, Pius Enam Hadide, who is a Deputy Minister of Information; the summit was meant to receive feedback from Ghanaians on government flagship programmes.
Cue Flagship;
