The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South constituency, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan has labelled government’s gold for oil policy as a daft idea.
According to the lawmaker, the policy does no only stagnate the economy, it takes the country back to the stone age
Mr Ricketts-Hagan made these comments on the Big Issue on Citi TV/Citi FM on Saturday, December 3.
He said the decision is a clear indication that the government lacks an understanding of Ghana’s economy.
The Cape Coast lawmaker said the policy has not been properly thought through by the government and would be difficult to implement since the prices of fuel are set by the international market.
“Gold for oil is a daft idea, extremely daft. This government is taking us from the Guggisberg economy to the stone age economy. This is what was done in the stone age,” Mr Ricketts-Hagan told host Selorm Adonoo.
He added that “the managers of the economy do not understand the modern day economy they are managing. The world has changed from when you can take tomatoes for onions… The price [of oil] is decided in the international market.”
Ghana’s Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia announced that the government is working on a new policy to buy oil products with gold rather than U.S. dollar reserves.
The move is meant to tackle dwindling foreign currency reserves coupled with the demand for dollars by oil importers, which is weakening the local cedi and increasing living costs.
The proposed policy by the government is uncommon. While countries sometimes trade oil for other goods or commodities, such deals typically involve an oil-producing nation receiving non-oil goods rather than the opposite.
Ghana produces crude oil but it has relied on imports for refined oil products since its only refinery shut down in 2017.
Source: theGhanaianvoice.com