Budget is a boon for Ghanaians.

Esther Obeng-Dapaah- screaming 'ye wuo'

The opposition New Patriotic Party is simply being virulent about the budget. What economic sense does it make to spend millions of dollars annually buying imported food from abroad? In the last five years for example, the country has spent US$530 billion on sugar imports alone. This is the kind of recklessness the opposition NPP and their agents want government to continue.

What the NDC government has done is to take care of our people. It has taken a tough decision to increase tariffs on imported agric products.

The budget for 2010 is out and predictably, political savants, serial callers and syndicated columnists are writing forceful denunciations about the projections, completely ignoring the interest of the larger society.

As a young Ghanaian, I have no interest fawning government even if it is a party I belong to. The reality is that Ghana is a nation addicted to credit and food imports. Every young man or woman must be worried about this trend.

The economic future of Ghana depends on what decisions government takes today. And I am excited government has taken a tough decision to help the agric sector. Our economy is agrarian and the sector is the largest export earner. It is the bedrock of the economy and our country's most important sector. We depend on the agric sector for employment and government revenue.

It must therefore be seen as very encouraging that government is doing well to help our people. As it stands now, Ghana is very vulnerable to global food price increases and disruption in food distribution that may result from unforeseen circumstances. It therefore makes a lot of sense to produce food for local consumption and food security. Government must therefore be commended and not excoriated for exceeding its target for the agriculture sector which grew at 6.2 percent against a target of 5.7 percent.

The NPP would rather have us spend US $ 600million annually on rice importation than empower our farmers who contribute nearly 40 percent of national GDP. Cheaper food is good news for Ghana. The measures taken by government means Ghanaians would have enough disposable income for other goods and services as we spend a lot on food.

It is important to underscore the fact that government is facing economic challenges largely because, for eight long years the government of Mr. Kufour failed to infuse economic prudence in his style of governance. It is a lie that the state could have achieved all of its targets in other sectors.

The opposition have a strong political motivation to make the budget look bad. They have shifted gears from post election drive to peddling falsehood ahead of 2012 elections. And to say the NDC should not mention the NPP as the major source of our economic woes is hysteria.

The position the NPP has taken on the budget is a betrayal of our famers, fisher folk, the local industry and their own sympathisers like Dr. Kwabena Darko whose farm industryweakened considerably under ex president Kufour's watch.

Yes it's been eleven months, and the problems left by John Kufour are now President Mills' problems, but we are still facing the consequences of unbridled debts the past regime left and you don't get huge debts out of the way in ten months. What President Mills is doing is to take care of our burdensome debt.

The NDC government realises that getting our debts down means getting our economic growth up. Mills has chosen prudence over recklessness. The political reality is that we cannot leave debts for our children to pay. The opposition wants government to ignore the dangers of killing the local industry. But the NDC is a social democratic party and social democracy is about government helping to improve the lives of locals.

It is about time to decide whether or not we want to continuously depend on foreign imports of food and the government has opted for the best way out.

The budget by all account is auspicious and we must rejoice the dawn of empowering Ghanaian farmers and the local industry generally. Government must be commended on meeting its agriculture target. This budget is a boon and gives succour to the people of Ghana especially the majority of Ghanaian workers who are in the Agric sector.

Mohammed Mubarak aka Ras Mubarak
[email protected]

Development / Accra / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com