The Finance Minister, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, has said the Akufo-Addo government continues to invest resources into pro poor policy interventions to ameliorate the suffering Ghanaians despite the economic challenges in the country.
“Our country is going through trying times [very difficult times] and the government has been working so hard to improve our conditions and to bring relief to all of us. In spite of the economic circumstances that are affecting every part of the world including our country, our government – the government of President Akufo-Addo continues to invest heavily in social interventions that would bring relief to our people” he stated.
Addressing the fourth edition of the Northern Regional Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Awards night on Saturday, September 14, 2024, in Tamale, Dr Amin highlighted the impact of the free Senior High School policy.
He indicated about 5.7million children have benefitted from the policy since its inception in 2017 and the government has invested close to GHS12 million in the implementation.
Similarly, he stressed the School Feeding Programme which has helped to improve enrolment and kept students in the classroom is another intervention the government continues to invest heavily in emphasizing the programme is today a big success and a model that many other countries are emulating.
“…Starting from about few hundreds of pupils to 1.6million pupils in 2016, to date it is covering 4million pupils across the country. Similarly, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is improving. In 2016, we spent almost a billion Ghana cedis in the National Health Insurance Program. However, we’ve increased the investment in this very important social intervention. Last year, we did 3billion Ghana cedis and this year we’re spending 6.5billion Ghana cedis in the NHIS” the Finance Minister announced.
Commenting on the macroeconomic front, the Minister said the government was making major progress with inflation trending downwards to 20.4 percent for August, admitting this is still high and the government will work assiduously to further bring it down.
“We’re working hard to reduce it to an end year target of 15% and this is coming from 54% by the end of 2022. So whilst we’re not at the desirable level, you will see the trend coming from 54% to 20.4% today and we hope to end the year with 15% and by next year we’re committed as a government under our program with the IMF to achieve a single digit inflation” he emphasised.
