CPP Will Halt Vicious Cycle of SAP TO HIPC TO SAP

Ghana has had a 20 year journey from SAP to HIPC and the question many in Ghana and abroad are asking is “Did we Come or Did We Go” Have we not seen it all before they cry.

The NPP government is slapping itself on the back for what they say is a “Job Well Done” in taking Ghana to the completion point on the HIPC road to salvation.

Over the next twenty years Ghana will allegedly receive debt relief of about $200million dollars per year.

We have achieved this they say , because Ghana is once again the “Darling Boy” of the IMF and the World Bank.

IC4 , the International Campaign Coordinating Committee for CPP has raised a number of points and asking questions in a letter to be sent to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

The IC4 letter asks how the situation now, differs from the point at which we began Structural Adjustment many years ago.

“Are we not back to the situation we were in at the beginning of Structural Adjustment when little bits of what amounts to foreign aid money is injected into the system coupled with more loans, and where did that lead us? , – to HIPC..

Has the country not continued to contract further loans?”

PAMSCAD 1 and PAMSCAD 11( The poverty mitigation strategy under SAP) did not halt poverty or the situation where 10% of our population now take nearly 50% of the income and 40% struggle on just 7%, so how will the promised debt relief earmarked for the GPRP (current government poverty reduction programme) make any difference?.

Are the conditionalities for the next twenty years which supposedly maintains debt relief not the same conditionalities during 17 years of SAP, which has left our social services, agriculture, health and education in tatters? Any additional money in the system is welcomed but how does this road ultimately transform our country and economy into a self sustaining economy?”

We believe that the same old road of aid/credit in exchange for fiscal discipline, trade and financial liberalization, tax reform and privitization of state assets has failed , but it will seem with an NPP or NDC government Ghana is destined to be stuck in an economic groove of SAP to HIPC to SAP to HIPC. This is a vicious cycle which only the CPP can break Ghana from and set us back on the track of a truly self-sustaining economy.