Ken Ofori-Atta
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta much anticipated Thursday March 24, 2022 addresss to the nation on measures instituted by government to resolve the current economic challenges has been postponed to a later date.
The address scheduled for 1pm in Parliament House on measures taken by government to to deal with the country’s economic challenges and hike in fuel prices has been shifted to yer be decided.
The new development was communicated per a written to Parliament by the Minister.
Per a report carried by an Accra based radio station, the Finance Minister has written a letter to Parliament explaining his reasons for not to be able to appear before the house.
According to him, he needs time to adequately prepare by putting datas together in order to be able to answer queries from some Members of Parliament (MPs) after delivery of his statement.
However, some members of the Minority Caucus appear to be unhappy about the decision taken by the minister.
According to them, the minister has adopted a habit of swerving parliament whenever he is supposed to appear before the house.
Ken supposed to address the nation on Thursday, March 24, 2022 at 1pm.
This follows government’s crunch cabinet meeting to find solutions to the raging economic challenges as a result of the depreciation of the cedi and the recent increment in fuel prices.
The meeting took place at the Peduase Lodge in Aburi in the Eastern Region from Thursday, March 17 to Sunday, March 20, 2022.
The deliberations were chaired by President Akufo-Addo. It was attended by all NPP MPs, ministers, government appointees, and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) leadership.
Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah after the proceedings mentioned that government has approved measures meant to mitigate the challenges of Ghanaians and bring the post COVID 19 economy back on track.
The meeting which discussed the current fiscal hurdles in the country and how to resolve them, according to the information minister came out with some measures to be announced which will go a long way to calm public anxiety regarding the country’s economic fortunes.
He further announced that the Finance Minister will soon address the country on the fall-outs of the meeting.
But President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, during an interaction with members of the Council of State at the Jubilee House on Tuesday revealed that the Finance Minister will address the nation on Thursday.
He said the Finance Minister’s address will highlight the outcome of deliberations that took place during cabinet’s weekend retreat.
“Our retreat which you referred to is in some way quite timely, because as a general rule, we have retreats each year on a quarterly basis, and this is the first one for this year. Fortunately for us, it coincided with these difficulties, and the public anxiety about the way that the economy was going. It gave us therefore the opportunity of the three days to look in-depth at where the economy was headed, and what measures were necessary to be taken.
“Some parts have apparently gone before the country, but the decision was that the Minister for Finance, on my instructions, is going to have a major engagement with the nation on Thursday, where he is going to be in a position to lay out specifically, the measures we’ve taken and we intend to take, to correct, as it were, put the ship of state, steep on a better keel”, President Akufo-Addo said.
By Vincent Kubi
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