The Member of Parliament (MP) for Efigya Sekyere East Mad. Mavis Nkansah-Boadu has made a statement on how Corona virus Pandemic has put the sport light on the need for Ghana to invest time and energy towards becoming self-reliant and self-sufficient in many sectors.
COVID 19 pandemic has spread rapidly around the globe since its outbreak in Wuhan, China in the late 2019 with Ghana recording it’s first case in March 2020.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament, Mad. Nkansah-Boadu indicated that, the virus has led to the halt of numerous projects as well as placed severe consequences on global economy which Ghana is not an exception.
Furthermore, food security she noted has been threatened thus constitutes a major disruption of global supply chains of goods and services.
“Mr. Speaker, it cannot be doubted that, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, countries in this part of our world relied heavily on other countries elsewhere particularly China, UK and US for imported goods and services”, she asserted.
“Indeed, in the specific case of Ghana, a very unbalanced relationship existed, hence created an unhealthy dependence on Ghana and other countries for critical goods such as pharmaceutical products, industrial machinery, electronics and electrical items, household furnishings personal Protection Equipment, and many other manufactured goods”.
Till on the floor, the Efigya Sekyere East MP acknowledged that, due to border restrictions and with global supply chain being disrupted owing to the pandemic, movement of goods and services have been severely negatively imported.
“It has thus brought into focus the need for our country to work assiduously towards becoming self-reliant and self-sufficient, which also falls in line with the President’s vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid”, she stated.
Mr. Speaker, “It is in recognition of this that President Akufo-Addo has maintained his vision for not only Ghana, but also Africa in general to move Beyond the quagmire of Aid dependency and other handouts”.
This she noted is to be achieved by rolling out conscious interventions to improve the productivity capacity of local industries.
” In light of the excellent efforts and foreseeable success of Ghana’s fight against COVID 19, we should be very optimistic and confident in our beloved Ghana, thus transform our beloved Ghana with the required focus, consistence and action, from a vulnerable self-insufficient import driven economy into a strong -self sufficient export driven economy”, she stressed.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com/ Delali Gavor/ Parliament
