A former Minister of Finance under the Kufuor Administration, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, has called for tough finance ministers to fix the country’s economy.
According to him, the only way the challenges confronting the nation’s economy will be solved is to have strong ministers of finance who cannot be tossed around.
He said such ministers must be willing to take drastic decisions regardless of the consequences, so far as they are in the country’s interest. Mr Maafo made the call at the 2015 Corporate Leadership Programme of Ayisi and Associates, a legal and business advisory firm in Accra.
This year’s business colloquium was on Raising Capital and Corporate Finance.
Over expenditure
Attributing the instability of the economy to over expenditure of governments, Mr Maafo said ministers of finance must be able to control that by not approving expenditure which was out of the budget.
He emphasised that successive governments of Ghana tended to spend more than they earned, adding that he became unpopular as a minister of finance because he always refused to approve expenditure which was out of the budget.
“This is very important and I say it with passion because I know what I went through in 2004. I became unpopular because I refused to approve money which was not in the budget. You want a stable currency and, therefore, you must spend within your own budgeted arrangements. If you come and say I will spend GH¢10, then you should spend GH¢10. You don’t come and say you are going to spend GH¢10 cedis and you go and spend GH¢20. That does not allow the stability of the economy,” he added.
He said his decisions to ensure that the right things were done led to the economy stabilising during his tenure but successive finance ministers had not been able to stand their ground to check the over expenditure of their respective governments.
Stability of the micro economy key to investors’ attraction
Mr Maafo stressed that the stability of the micro economy was key to attracting investors and if that was not enforced Ghana would loss most of its investors to countries which had stable economies.
“If I invest $10 today, I want to make profit; nobody should think of investment as a father Christmas thing,” he stated.
The Executive Director and Head of Databank Asset Management, Rev. Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, urged micro finance companies to engage the service of special advisors to guide them on issues regarding their capital structure.
He explained that it was important to get professionals who could assess the situation and look at the available options in the market and based on that guide the company on how to raise money to achieve its goal.
In his welcome address, the Managing Partner of Ayisi and Associates, Mr Justice Ayisi Esq, said the programme was to assist clients to meet the recent directive by the Bank of Ghana for all rural and community banks and micro finance companies to increase their minimum paid-up capital.
Source: Daily Graphic
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