A seminar on the 2003 Budget has been held in London.

The seminar, chaired by H.E. Mr. Isaac Osei, Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK, was attended many Ghanaians drawn from the financial sector, community associations and groups, senior officials of the Mission and friends of Ghana.

Hon. J.H. Mensah, Senior Minister and Chairman of the Economic Management Team, and Mr. Kwasi Abeasi, Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre led the discussions at the seminar.

In his presentation, Mr. Mensah outlined efforts the Government had within the past two years initiated to restore a stable macro economic framework to the economy.

He said despite the bold efforts, the economy would endure a long period of convalescence because of the depth of the sickness.

“Unless the tax base is broadened with revenue generation at a much more faster rate than what we are doing now, the nation will be in trouble,” he said.

To reverse the trend, Mr. Mensah called for expansion of the base of public finance to enable Government provide required services for the nation and advocated for the ultimate institution of systems to ensure the accelerated and rapid growth of the economy and reduction of Government debts.

Mr. Mensah appealed to Ghanaians in the Diaspora in the finance sector to help build a strong finance base for the country and emphasised that without it, industry would be handicapped.

He assured Ghanaians that all foreign accounts would be protected and announced, amidst cheers, that following Government intervention, the banks in the country had started paying interest on foreign accounts.

“I therefore urge you to consider increasing the level of your foreign accounts,” he said.

On the proposed health insurance scheme, he said it would help eliminate the trauma of having to find money out of peoples’ pockets for treatment of diseases they had not budgeted for.

He said although some people might think it was ambitious for a poor country such as Ghana to have a health insurance scheme, the alternative would have been worse for people who required hospital care but had avoided going to hospital because of economic reasons.

Referring to petroleum products, Mr. Mensah said Government had to charge the right price in order to take care of the costs involved especially the price of crude oil and the foreign exchange rate factor.

With regards to the HIPC, he said there was no need for people to sneeze at it. He said the initiative had been beneficial, led to generous cancellation of loans by donor community and the release of resources for development in vital sectors, such as health and education especially in the rural areas.

Mr. Abeasi pointed out the Government was becoming more realistic with the national budget, a trend which, he said, should give hope to Ghanaians.

As realism is injected into the pricing of utilities, distortions in the economy would be minimised, he said.

“The reason why we have not succeeded in the past is because the previous Government did not have the guts to take realistic decisions, he said”.

He declared: “It is important for us to realise that when you have a Government that at a risk of being unpopular, is prepared to take hard but necessary decisions, then we should all rally behind it”.

Touching on investments, Mr. Abeasi called on Ghanaians to help promote investment into the country by helping to create the right image and perception.

To Ghanaians who were not ready to return home, he urged them to consider investments in some of the areas identified in various “Presidential initiatives”.

Summing up, Mr Isaac Osei assured Ghanaians that the Mission would continue to make efforts to link up Ghanaians with visiting ministers, and top officials in order to enhance the information delivery process on Government policies and programmes.

The seminar was useful. It enabled Ghanaians to ask searching questions on matters of economic interest and growth of the economy.

Issues raised by participants centred, among other things, on difficulties in clearing cheques. Others were on increase in prices of petroleum products, development of private public partnerships, the inefficiency of the telecommunications system, the need to take measures to increase local production of rice and poultry and measures being put in place to reduce poverty in the country.