Revamp Non-Oil Sector To Create Jobs – IFS Charges Gov’t

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), has charged government to revamp the non-oil sector to accelerate job creation.

According to the Director of Research of the Institute, Dr. John Kwabena Kwakye, non-oil growth has been lagging recently as a result of depressed commodity prices, energy shortages, macroeconomic instability, low imports and fiscal retrenchment.

“Ghana should be able to do better than this if the right policies are pursued to revamp the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

“If we are going to grow at only 5% on long-term bases, it will take us a very long time for us to even double our per capital income so we need to be able to do better with the right policies”, he stressed.

Dr. Kwakye made this statement at the Institute’s pre-2018 budget forum, dubbed ‘Mobilizing Adequate Domestic Revenue for Development’, in Accra yesterday.

A report by the institute, in analyzing the performance of the economy in the first quarter of the year, stated that although the economy witnessed a strong overall GDP during the period, non-oil GDP was subdued.

“Non-oil real GDP grew by only 3.9% against 6.3% growth recorded in 2016, due to low activity services sector, which grew by 3.7% in the first quarter of this year compared with 6.6% in the same period last year”, according to the report.

The Director of Research also urged government to transform the economy to ensure stability in the exchange rate.

According to him, the cedi has been relatively stable against the dollar but higher against pound and euro.

He stressed that government will be able to stabilize the exchange rate, if it comes up with the right policies to add value to export products.

Finally, Dr. Kwakye pointed out that, in order not to endanger the economy, there should be reinforcement to mobilize and support critical expenditures.

Source: Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum/ thePublisher