News:
President AGI left
November 16, 2022
President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Dr. H. Kwesi Ayim-Darke is pushing for quarterly meeting with Parliament’s Committee on Trade Industry and Tourism and expressed joy of the engagement.
According to him it is part of what they call the public-private dialogue series, and expressed the hope that such engagements are structured quarterly to ensure the evolution of free economy where it is more dominated by private sector engagement. And added that the call for PPSD to be legislated for continues engagement is in the right direction.
He also asserts that just as the Deputy Minority leader James Klutsey Avedzi said it is their wish to bring out a private members bill which he calls the ‘budget bill’ as part of the solution. They understand the limitation of policy formulation; policy is initiated from the executive, it goes through the agencies and consultation.
The consultation is just an advisory work; the final decision comes from the Executive. Once you have such engagement, you bring all the policy players in place; “the agencies, the inter- ministerial, so you look at our issues holistically. When you do this consultation it becomes binding”.
An example is in the Obatampaa Project Plan, take time and read, it is a very beautiful well documented project and anytime AGI seats we see our reflection in it, beyond its being captured a very lovely blue print the next stage is execution and this can be challenged by our debt portfolio because you need space to do those interventions, he stated.
So when you bring such document to parliament together in your initiatives you can find away round it; we want to go beyond policy formulation, our plan is we should see a clear plan from MPs that really represent us. The NDPC does the planning, the Ministry of Finance through the Executive sees to such document being executed.
Again, according to the consultations done, it should not be just as advisory document placed somewhere and the party manifesto are driven, “let us focus on the national collectivity that is our approach on this engagement”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com