Samia voices CPP’s discontent over outcome of economic forum
Ms Samia Yaba Nkrumah, National Chairperson and Leader of the Convention People's Party (CPP), has said the path and solution to the economic difficulties of the country is the election of a CPP government for it to implement an economic development programme that is inspired and defined by the struggle for political and economic freedom.
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Voicing the party's discontent over the outcome of the just-ended National Economic Forum held at Senchi last week, she said the invitation from the government from the outset was problematic.
She explained that the invitation did not ask for the position of CPP on underlying pertinent issues that could possibly enhance the purpose and usefulness of the forum.
These sentiments were contained in an open letter to Ghanaians on the CPP's views of what went wrong during the three-day non-partisan dialogue to discuss Ghana's troubled economy.
According to Ms Nkrumah, the government neither disclosed the status of its manifesto and its Better Ghana Agenda in relation to the national economic forum to give a firm assurance of its commitment to the implementation of its outcomes.
In this regard, she stated that the CPP’s option in the circumstances was to reduce the level of their participation in the forum to an observer status.
She said the CPP honoured the invitation because “we deemed it an honourable duty to respond to the call of our nation and respect the constitutional institutions of the state, including the Presidency.”
In the view of the CPP, the purpose and objective of the forum ,according to the government, was to discuss and develop a national consensus on policy actions that would address the current economic and financial difficulties that threatened a social upheaval arising from widespread unemployment and financial hardships of our people.
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According to the CPP, the conception of the forum as building consensus on economic development policy issues was, however, not sufficiently indicative of an act in good faith.
“The concept note of the forum was another disincentive to participate in the discussions of the forum. It was our hope the forum would provide the opportunity to review the foundation and direction of our development policy over the last 30 years which have resulted in massive youth unemployment,” the CPP said.
The CPP letter indicated that the concept note however revealed a commitment to the same neo-liberal economic development policy framework that had imposed severe hardship on our people in pursuit of macroeconomic stability by severe austerity measures.
“Our party’s Nkrumaist economic development policy approach of the intervention of government to promote investments in the human and material resources of our nation for the production of goods and services to satisfy our needs and export is unalterably opposed to this neo-liberal economic development policy of wage freeze, retrenchment and redeployment of labour, heavy taxation and high interest rates,” the letter added.
Indeed, the CPP letter stated that the conditions that necessitated the national economic forum after 32 years of implementation of policies of structural adjustments and fiscal austerity vindicated the alternative Nkrumaist development policy that was informed by our history of slavery and colonialism and driven by a transformation of the colonial economy or decolonisation.
“We, therefore, renew our unwavering dedication and commitment to the responsibility of colonial freedom to demonstrate the capability of our people to develop and manage our economy for prosperity,” the letter pointed out.