The caretaker minister for finance, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has said the government’s Coronavirus Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprise Support (CARES) initiative, also known as the “Obaatanpa” Programme, is a singular and remarkable financial investment in the Ghanaian economy by a sitting government.
Presenting the 2021 Budget Statement and Economic Policy in Parliament on Friday 12 March 2021, Mensah-Bonsu said the Obaatanpa Programme in response to the coronavirus pandemic is meant to cushion Ghanaians and businesses against the adverse economic effects of the virus.
He said the GHC100 billion investment into the Ghanaian economy is meant to revitalise the economy, which has been undone by the global pandemic, and restore it to pre-COVID-19 levels.
“Pursuing the GHC100 billion Ghana CARES ‘Obaatanpa’ Programme allows us to address the challenges and also seize the opportunities created by COVID-19 for socio-economic transformation. This programme will foster closer collaboration with the private sector, labor, faith-based organizations and development partners to complement efforts in the revitalization and growth agenda.
“The ‘Obaatanpa’ programme is inspired by His Excellency President Akufo-Addo’s conviction that ‘what our forebears dreamed of, we will achieve, if we inherited dreams and visions from our founding fathers, we should leave legacies of achievements and realities to our children and their children’,” he said.
Ghana CARES (Obaatan pa)
Ghana CARES is a GHC100 billion post-COVID plan initiated by the government to stabilize, revitalise and transform Ghana’s economy and to create jobs and prosperity for Ghanaians over a three-year period.
The programme is sequenced in two phases: a stabilisation phase and a medium-term revitalisation phase.
The minister said that the investment is aimed at expanding commercial agriculture and attract educated youth into agriculture; building the light manufacturing industry in Ghana, targeting agro-processing, food import substitution, textiles and pharmaceuticals.
It will also develop engineering, machine tools and information/communications technology digital economy industries; fast-track digitisation by expediting government digital initiatives; develop Ghana’s housing and construction industry; and establish Ghana as a regional hub, leveraging its position in ECOWAS and as the host of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat by focusing on manufacturing, finance, mining, health care, aviation and logistics, digital services, petroleum, the automobile industry, tourism, hospitality and the creative arts.
Economic recovery
According to Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the 2021 Budget will ensure economic recovery and macroeconomic stability by rolling out well-thought-through measures which will get the economy back in motion.
He explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated economies around the world, Ghana’s included, and explained that the unexpected turn of events required swift action to ameliorate the negative impact of the pandemic on livelihoods.
“Under President Akufo-Addo’s leadership, we took the required swift, drastic and decisive measures to mitigate the spread of the pandemic,” he said. “We rapidly mobilised and deployed extensive internal and external resources to support Ghanaian households and enterprises …
“Mr Speaker, we are now better positioned to recover and build back a more resilient economy not only because we know how to do it but also because the grace of God has been assured for this journey,” he said.
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