General News of Saturday, 18 November 2017
Source: citifmonline.com
2017-11-18
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that his administration has made enough strides in their first 11 months in office to earn the trust of Ghanaians in their ability to fulfil all of their promises during their tenure.
“It’s important for trust in government and important for trust in politicians because they should be seen to be people of their word. You come and make a promise but when you get into office, you find all kinds of reasons to say I can’t do it; it’s not good for government,” the President said.
“We committed [ourselves] and all the commitments that we’ve made, gradually and systematically, we are beginning to realise them. They are things we thought about, long and deep in opposition and we believe that they were the way to putting our country on the way to progress and prosperity.”
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, on Wednesday, outlined the investments made by the government in various sectors, including in education, health, agriculture and energy.
He announced tax reliefs for private universities and young entrepreneurs and added that the government was well on course to meeting its macroeconomic targets for the year.
He also stated that the government had revised the tariff-setting methodology and the cost structure for power production and would submit a recommendation to the PURC for an average reduction of between 13 and 21 percent in electricity tariffs for residential and industrial consumers.
The President, who is currently on a three-day official visit to Qatar, also expressed satisfaction with the work done by his administration in the energy sector, stating that the power challenges that had plagued the country in the last five years have stabilised under his government’s watch.
“We’re beginning to forget that there was a time where we had dumsor. Thank God, the situation is now stabilised and in this year’s budget, Ofori-Atta has just announced that we are making proposals to the PURC to bring down electricity tariffs and rates to be able to stimulate industrial development,” he said.
“The government is putting, before the PURC, a set of proposals, leading to a reduction in the electricity rate. For industrial consumers that can go to as high as a 25% reduction and for households, between 12 and 13%.”
Ken Ofori-Atta is a magician
The President heaped praise on Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta for his efforts in ensuring that key government projects were financed, something which had been a major issue for critics.
Ofori Atta himself had earlier described the achievements chalked by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, just months into their 4-year tenure as miraculous, given how little the previous administration had left in the nation’s coffers.
His sentiments were echoed by Nana Akufo-Addo who described the Finance Minister as “a magician” for finding sources of funding in spite of the tough economic situation the country found itself in when they came into office.
