How Covid-19 is Exposing Ghana's financial preparedness for emergencies

Mensah Thompson of ASEPA writes....

Ladies and Gentlemen even under the erstwhile Government, when we said the economy was so bad, our contingency funds were loaded.
Contingency funds like the Sinking fund which took excess proceeds from the oil revenue and the stabilization fund all had enough for the Country to call on in times of National emergencies.

Thanks to the strictness of Mr.Seth Tekper, these funds were untouched and were bequeathed to the current government.

It is therefore sad to note that today, the Finance Minister without any shred of shame appeared before Parliament to tell the house that as we speak, Ghana is doing lalasulala at the IMF and World bank to be able to raise the $100million voted by the President to combat the covid-19 pandemic because it has no contingency funds to call on at this moment.

This is what happens when you recklessly deplete all your contingency funds without any recourse to the future.
They are called contingency funds for a reason.

Now our abled medical staffs are going to be left with the agony of managing fewer PPEs available to handle suspected codvid-19 cases until the IMF and the World bank benevolently dash us some funds...
Noguchi and KCCI would also have manage the few reagents and funds given to them by our development partners and perhaps fold their arms when they get depleted.

This is what happens when you have an irresponsible Government who thinks only about their belly and cares little about the future of the Country. ..

For now we shall patiently wait on the benevolence of the bretton woods institutions whose conditions for voting Ghana some funds could include accepting to test their incomplete vaccines on innocent Ghanaians or even worse.

Cry my beloved Country, cry...!!!

Mensah Thompson
Executive Director, ASEPA