Government Mitigates Impact Of Global Financial Crisis

President John Evans Atta Mills yesterday stated that Ghana's cut in all low priority public spending and the shift from recurrent expenditure to infrastructure investment is to reduce the impact of the global financial crisis.

Delivering his maiden address at the UN General Assembly in New York, he said there is the need for fiscal restraint in the face of the crisis that threatens to erode the gains of decades of modest growth and thereby made the Millennium Development Goals unattainable in any meaningful way.

President Mills reiterated Ghana's commitment to the ideals of the UN and said she will continue to live up to its charter obligations and together with member States assist the organisation in maintaining global peace and security.

The Session is on the theme, "Effective Responses to Global Crises, Strengthening Multilateralism and Dialogue among Civilizations for International Peace, Security and Development."

The session was preceded by the Summit on Climate Change, with other meetings on the challenges of malaria, HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and conflict and disarmament making the headlines.

President Mills noted that despite expanded and accelerated economic inter-dependence among states through globalisation, the benefits to be derived have been negligible to the majority of developing countries adding that their economies have not transformed in any significant manner.

He said most of the countries remain susceptible to various shocks that continue to pose threats to their growth and only a few have been able to reduce the proportion of their populations living on less than one dollar a day.

President Mills reminded rich countries to make more efforts to meet existing commitments on aid, debt reduction and accelerate disbursements and improve access to existing financial facilities.

The International Monetary Fund should also put in place a new facility with relaxed conditions to support African economies during the crisis period and increase capital for the African Development Fund to enable it to scale up its interventions in support of African development.

It should also sell its gold reserves to release additional resources to help developing countries deal with the financial crisis and issue new special drawing rights.

President Mills, who has held discussions with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and is scheduled later to meet the Ghanaian community in Washington, said international trade has the potential to reduce poverty but the current global trading regime discriminated against the earning opportunities of farmers and rural communities in poor countries.

Source: GNA