Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Information has stated that the country’s economy is recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking in an interview with Kojo Mensah on The Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday (19 July), Nkrumah said: “The biggest is the recovery from COVID-19 pandemic both on the health front and then on the economic front.”
“On the economic front which is the twin crisis that always come with the pandemic, the economy is gradually finding its feet.
“We were growing averagely close to about 7% from 2017 to 2019, [then] COVID hit us. We have to shut down parts of the economy and then we went into a dip, but very quickly that recovery is coming back. Data suggest about 3.1% recovery in first quarter this year,” Nkrumah added.
“We are expecting quarter two to do pretty well as well and if we can come back to somewhere like 5 or 6% and sustain same over the next four years, then we know we are getting better.”
Continuous recovery
Nkrumah, however, believed the recent collaboration between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the National Identification Authority (NIA) is helping to plug loopholes in revenue mobilisation.
“A lot of the work has gone into how to get a lot more efficiency in the system, that is why the GRA is doing a lot of tasks with the NIA to ensure a lot of people file their tax returns,” he said.
Concerns over insecurity
On security, Nkrumah expressed concern over the increasing rate of insecurity in West Africa following recent terrorist and piracy attacks.
“I am sad to say that our security situation in West Africa is getting a bit more precarious and we are having to pay a lot more attention to it than before.
“Terrorism and piracy are some of our biggest security threats today around West Africa. If you look at the numbers and how close, it is getting home…” he said.
Fred Dzakpata
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