Let’s do away with Bretton Woods — CPP

THE Convention People’s Party (CPP) has reiterated its call on successive governments to break away from the shackles of the Bretton Woods institutions.
This, it said, would avoid the situation where the country would be at the apron strings of the institutions and unable to pursue policies and programmes that would engender the needed social transformation.
The 2008 Presidential aspirant and his running mate, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom and Dr Abu Sakara Foster were contributing to the party’s weekly press briefing by various Shadow Cabinet Members dubbed “How CPP Will do It” in Accra on Wednesday.
This week’s address was by the party’s Chairman, Mr Ladi Nylander and was titled “CPP’s expectations for 2010 budget”
According to Dr Nduom who said he had once worked in a canned beef factory and maize farm in the United States of America, countries such as the US, which is capitalist to the core, still provided subsidies for its farmers.
He said unfortunately in Ghana, where farmers were poor, they were rather denied subsidies because of prescriptions by some Bretton Wood institutions.
He said after all these projectionist approach by the US government, it also went ahead to provide ready markets for its local farmers to ensure that their produce did not go waste like what pertained in Ghana.
He said it was out of these agricultural produce bought by the government that the US government used to support countries around the world that had been affected by disasters.
Dr Nduom said almost all the developed countries imposed strict quotas and taxes on agricultural produce from other parts of the world, all geared towards securing the markets for their local farmers.
He said the CPP would never depart from its campaign to ensure that even before it came to power, Ghanaians, especially the state, used its purchasing power to resource local manufacturers.
He said government had the capacity, as per its purchasing power, to lead the way by instructing that all state institutions purchased made in Ghana products, especially agricultural products.
Dr Nduom noted that over the years, governments had failed to spend over $ 1 billion because of lack of priority or lack of strategy.
According to Dr Sakara, who is also an agricultural economist, Ghana’s agriculture sector had not developed to the appreciable levels expected because government and banks had refused to make the needed investments.
He said there was no way any of the countries that professed to be helping this country would collect taxes from its hardworking citizens and use them to support Ghana to strengthen its industrial or agricultural sector to the detriment of the their (donors) industry and agriculture.
He said it was incumbent on government to strategise and develop policies that would allow even private banks to lend to the agricultural sector as a means of modernising the sector.
Addressing the press about the CPP’s expectation for the 2011 budget, he said after comparing the NDC policies with what the CPP Shadow Cabinet Members had presented so far, “the fact of the matter is that we find that the CPP vision requires more than an incremental change or shift in approach from that of the NDC and the NPP. Ours is change that is transformational”.
He said what the CPP envisioned was a paradigm shift from neo-colonialist dependency to bring the economy back home.
The National Chairman noted that paying attention to social welfare meant more than 100 per cent increase in budget for community-based programmes to meet the needs of the poor, needy and elderly.
He added that a strong commitment to use science and technology to improve productivity meant a huge change in the allocation of funds in the areas of education, public service and trade and industry to develop the right type of human capital.
He said the CPP expected the 2011 budget to break from the pattern set by the 2009 and 2010 budgets to low?? growth and urged the government “to stretch its imagination out of the box and go for growth beyond 10 per cent by proposing spending that will energise the productive sectors of the economy.