President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated calls to Ghanaians to bear with his government as it works hard to chart a path out of the current socio-economic challenges confronting the country.
He said the policies and programmes being rolled out, although difficult were geared towards getting Ghanaians out of the storm and would require the prayers and support of all.
“This government will not shirk its responsibilities to the people of Ghana to make the hard decision which hard times demand. It may be painful just like injection, but, we have to take it if we want to be well again to get our economy back in a good place,” he stressed.
Nana Akufo-Addo made the call at the climax of the centenary anniversary celebrations of the Ga Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana held at the Independence Square in Accra yesterday.
It was on the theme: “Grateful for our heritage, forging ahead in unity and faith.”
The President said the theme of the celebration recalled the difficult times in which “we found ourselves as Ghanaians and presented for us the reason to hold on firmly our faith as Christians and why we should never stop believing in the power and in the grace of the almighty God.”
He said the last three years had proven to be very challenging years for Ghana as had been for all countries in the world, stressing that “for the avoidance of doubt, let us remember that every country on earth is going through difficult times.”
President Akufo-Addo noted that the country was confronted with high freight charges, high fuel cost, high food prices steeped in inflationary spikes and depreciation of the cedi in the last few days of November reached its record low and the jury was out on his government.
However, with appropriate policies, determination, and hard work on the part of Ghanaians, things were beginning to turn around and what seemed impossible yesterday was now becoming possible.
“We are definitely not yet out of the woods; however, today the cedi is rapidly appreciating against the US dollar and all major currencies making up for its losses. The prices of petroleum products are reducing at the pump,” he said.
He said the appreciation of the cedi had not happened by chance but through deliberate policies by the government in collaboration with the Bank of Ghana.
The policies he said included, cedi liquidity, tighten measures, improvement of forex inflows from remittance and the mining sector as well as reaching of the Staff Level Agreement with the IMF for the $3billion package.
“I can assure that government will continue to work hard to maintain and sustain the gains made. Indeed, in the weeks on hand, the BoG will begin with the purchases of forex from the mining companies and oil sectors to enhance liquidity supplies to the market,” he said.
He said “the government would continue with the single forex forward auction and some modest targeted bilateral support to critical imports and the gold for oil swap transaction to significantly ease the pressure on the cedi,”
President Akufo-Addo, therefore, urged traders, trotro operators and manufacturers to reduce the pressure on Ghanaians.
On his part the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rt Rev. Prof Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante, called on Christians to live by the tenets of their faith.
He said the Christian faith was anchored on spiritual, moral, social and environmental witness.
He said the church must begin to teach the youth to do away with greed, corruption, immorality and other forms of vices, stressing that “if we do this not only will we live by our faith but will also impact society positively.”
The Ga Presbytery came into being following synod’s acceptance for the creation of the first five presbyteries which also included: Akuapem and Anum, Agona and Kotoku, Akyem and Okwawu and Asante and Asante Akyem in 1922.
The Ga-Adangme presbytery was initially made up of three districts that is Christianborg, Abokobi and Odumasi.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
