Gov’t Addresses Economic Constraints

The Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Professor George Gyan-Baffour, says government is ready to eliminate institutional, structural and financial constraints impeding economic development.

According to him, removing these constraints through various policy mechanisms could increase the economy's capacity for expansion, investment, labor absorption and exports.

The Minister disclosed this at the launch of this year's statistical week celebration on Monday.

Statistics is relevant to today's economy as it is used to measure inflation, gross domestic product (GDP) and the overall national account of an economy.

Professor Gyan-Baffour said government was committed to a strong national statistical system, adding that the development of a National Strategy for the Development of statistics (NSDS) was vital since the coordinating role of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) could only be improved with a robust statistical system.

He called for stock taking to review GSS's history, assess the state of development of statistical methodologies and advances in the application of technological innovations.

He emphasized the need to identify factors influencing the delay in the release and dissemination of data.

“Realistic performance targets need to be set for all players with feasible implementation designs,” he explained.

The Deputy Minister called for a comprehensive roadmap to ensure smooth monitoring and control of the system that would enable players to know what their inputs should be during the process.

“The problem of inconsistent definitions and concepts must be dealt with if a credible national statistics system is to be in place.”

By Charles Nixon Yeboah