The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has outlined some major things that have happened in the last 3 years in the country and the efforts the government has made to deal with them.

Describing the period as an extremely difficult time, the minister said that it took the combination of support from the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the citizenry to be able to surmount the challenges.

Speaking on the floor of parliament during the 2023 Mid-Year Budget Review, the minister said some of the challenges within that period were brought on by the COVID-19.

Below are portions of the statement of the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, that outlines these areas of difficulties:

“Over that period, the country has gone through extremely difficult situations, and the gratitude of His Excellency the President and his government goes to the good people of Ghana for their patience, understanding and positive contributions to Government’s efforts to weather the storm:

COVID-19:

“During the CoVID-19 period, we indeed lost family members and friends. But, it is also true that Ghana recorded some of the lowest cases of mortality and infections worldwide. This was due to the implementation of a swift and robust COVID response programme led by H.E the President. We recorded 171,653 CoVID-19 cases and 1,462 deaths as against 10.8 million recorded cases and 228,738 deaths on the African continent alone, and 249 million recorded cases and 2 million deaths in Europe. May the souls of the faithfully departed, rest in peace.

Education:

“We invested immensely in education to ensure that school years were not disrupted, and we did so because we knew the alternative would be significantly costlier to society. That was why the President ensured that our children returned to school earlier to write their examinations to enable us to build the requisite human capital for the future.

Power supply:

“We ensured consistent power supply and kept the lights on to enable businesses and households function, despite the increasing cost of legacy energy agreements.

Salaries and wages:

“We continued paying salaries and wages of all public sector employees and factored in a 30% increment of base pay for workers on single spine salary structure this year.

Security:

“We invested in the security of the nation and protected our citizens, including the lives of the 1.1 million visitors who responded to our “Beyond 4 the Year of Return” programme, thus boosting tourism even in the middle of the crises.

Financial Sector clean up:

“We cleaned up and strengthened the Financial Sector to promote entrepreneurship and private sector businesses, including agriculture, tourism, hotels, manufacturing.

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