General News of Friday, 20 April 2018Source: rainbowradioonline.comGhana has moved beyond slogans - GovernmentInformation Minister, Mustapha HamidGovernment of Ghana has reacted to the statement delivered by Professor Philip Aston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Humans that politicians in Ghana are champions of slogans but are not good at programmes which can significantly benefit the country’s economy or the lives of its citizens. Addressing the press today [Thursday], Minister of Information, Dr Mustapha Hamid, said the report by the UN representative is coming at a time when programmes of social protection have been given high priority status. The minister told journalists that ‘’the budget for social protection shot up by 300 percent last year, the highest ever on record under any government in Ghana since independence.’’Professor Alston indicated that the one district, one factory and one village, one dam, although attractive on the surface, achieve very little in principle. In 2017, we missed our revenues target by only 4 per cent. While this may not be exactly good news, because we need to collect the maximum tax projections, it nonetheless shows that his ‘’informed estimates’’ are not exactly informed.’’He was optimistic that the policies by government will see marked improvement in the lives of poor communities of our country, that hopefully will help bridge the gap between the wealthy and the poor…So we have moved beyond mere sloganeering to actual implementation of programmes that are physically visible on the ground.’’

Source: GhanaWeb April 19, 2018 19:18 UTC