[ 2016-11-02 ]

Find Permanent Solution To Election Year Deficits
The Managing Directors of the Graphic
Communications Group Ltd, Mr Kenneth Edem
Ashigbey, and Stanbic Bank Ghana, Mr Alhassan
Andani, have called for a concerted effort to find
solutions to the country's perennial election year
deficits so as to give confidence to the investor
community in the economy. 
 
Speaking at the Graphic Business Stanbic Bank
Breakfast Meeting in Accra, Mr Andani said fiscal
deficits and throwing the macroeconomc environment
out of gear due to upcoming elections had proven
to be very costly to the economy, as investors
would normally hold their investments awaiting the
outcomes of elections, a situation that needed to
be reversed.

He said having quite rightly chosen democracy as
the way to govern, the associated elections had
proven to be very expensive, not just the cost of
putting it together but the anxiety it created,
especially in this part of the world. 

Mr Andani revealed that those of them in the
financial services sector who interacted with the
domestic investors and external investors
understood first-hand the real cost of elections,
saying since January most of Stanbic Bank's
conversations with external investors had been on
how the December 7 elections would turn out, where
they had to assure them that nothing would
happen.

However, he said, what had continued to bedevil
the democratic dispensation had been the way the
economy was managed and the consequences of how to
run a stable economy outside the rigours of
elections.

"For example, we should be mindful the way
government would run to ensure that everything we
do in an election year is within our normal frame
of running our economy. It should have very little
bearing with the civil democratic choices we
make," Mr Andani stressed.

Mr Andani believes that truly having democratic
processes without destabilising the economy and
therefore "removing the huge cost of everybody
waiting till after elections, which takes a whole
year to correct" was the way to assuring external
investors especially to have faith in the
economy.

For his part, Mr Ashigbey chronicled how since
1992 the economy had slipped into gaping deficits
every four to eight years when there were national
elections.

He said the fiscal indiscipline, which cut across
ruling parties, the National Democratic Congress
(NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), required
leaders at all levels to come out with pragmatic
solutions to end it perpetually.

The business leaders were leading discussions on
the theme, Election year budget deficits:
Implications for macroeconomic stability.

The 1992 elections saw the economy slip from a
surplus equivalent to 1.9 per cent of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) in 1991 to a deficit of 4.9
per cent of GDP after the elections.

Then in 2008, another election year, a four per
cent budget deficit target turned out to be 11.5
per cent, with the 2012 election year overspending
settling at 11.8 per cent, instead of 6.7 per cent
of GDP target.

"We have leaders in both categories, the
politicians and the electorate. We need to come up
with a Ghanaian solution to this canker that has
bedeviled us for some time now," Mr Ashigbey
stated.

The MD of the Graphic Group explained that
collaboration with Stanbic Bank and Busy 4G was
part of the quest by Graphic Business, the
business news weekly of the Graphic Group, to
offer tye platform to examine the challenge and
propose solutions.

"As a newspaper, the Graphic Business is always
looking for the best ways to help the business
community to have relevant information for their
day-to-day as well as strategic business
decisions," Mr Ashigbey stated.
 

 

Source - Daily Graphic

... go Back