2024 elections should put confidence in economy – Prof Bokpin tells EC
Professor Godfred Alufar Bokpin, an Economist, has asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to conduct the 2024 elections in a manner that will give investors’ confidence in the Ghanaian economy.
That, he said required that the EC periodically communicated a well-thought-out plan for the conduct of the elections to all stakeholders, including political parties, to ensure credibility in the processes and predictability in the economy.
He said this in the context of the ongoing implementation of the $3 billion loan-support programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), indicating that past experiences showed laxity in negotiations during the peak of elections.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Prof Bokpin stated that such a situation made many investors adopt a “wait and see” approach because they were sceptical about economic stability post-election.
“What we can do now is the signal we send to the market, and a lot depends on how the Electoral Commission manages the election process with some level of credibility and predictability,” he said.
He explained that in some of the major elections in the past, some people prepared to travel outside the country, fearing that the worst could happen, noting that, “in that process, there are those who would store liquidity in dollars.”
That, he said contributed to the depreciating of the cedi, and inflation, as well as the overall performance of the economy, hence, the need for all stakeholders to work to repose confidence in the economy during the 2024 elections.
“The EC must have a plan for managing the elections. and ensure that it is well communicated to political parties that help them to have confidence in the EC,” Prof Bokpin, who is also a finance professor at the University of Ghana said.
For security agencies, he encouraged them to work together to ensure that there was fairness in the discharge of their duties, before, during and after the elections.
“The incumbent usually has an upper hand in terms of using the security agencies (Police, Army, and Fire Service) in the election process, but what Ghana is asking, for now, is some level of fairness so that we have trust in the system,” he said.
He noted that it would be difficult to have an incidence-free election in all the 275 constituencies, and polling stations.
However, Prof Bokpin noted that when every process of the elections was managed well, it would help the country “to consolidate the limited gains that we’ve made under the IMF-supported programme.”
He asked the government not to sign new projects, commence all kinds of road construction that would not be completed between now (June) and the end of 2024, and be prudent with expenditure.
This would be the ninth consecutive election that Ghana would conduct since it returned to constitutional democracy in 1992, and under the Fourth Republic.
Source: GNA