The 1992 Constitution has to be amended in order to improve the nation's fiscal responsibility and guarantee macroeconomic stability, according to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).
It suggested, for example, amending Articles 86 and 87 of the constitution to change the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the duties assigned to it.
It advocated separating the commission from the executive branch of government and creating a separate, independent organization with the authority to create a long-term development strategy that would be legally enforceable for all governments.
Dr. John Kwakye, IEA's director of research, stated yesterday during a lecture in Accra that the precise structure of the development plan and the makeup of the commission might be debated and revised accordingly.
Along with the Ministry of Finance, he recommended that the commission be transformed into a full-fledged Ministry of Economic Planning or Ministry of Economy with the responsibility for creating, among other things, long-term development plans.
Dr. Kwakye claims that many nations have distinct ministries of finance and economy, with one concentrating on the budget and the other on economic planning.
IMF rescue
According to him, the government has visited the IMF 17 times because it was unable to maintain fiscal discipline, which is essential for both debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability.
He said that the nation was mired in a never-ending cycle of large budget deficits, high interest rates, high inflation, large current account deficits, swift exchange rate depreciation, and erratic growth.
We have visited the IMF 17 times because of our persistent fiscal irresponsibility, which is accompanied by macroeconomic instability and debt problems.
The director stated that the restoration of macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, which we have lost, is a common aim that runs through all of the countless communiqués released by the IMF and our authorities on the current program discussions.
He said that despite the IEA's ongoing efforts to promote macroeconomic stability and budgetary restraint, no progress had been made.
Dr. Kwakye claimed that the nation needed to make significant adjustments to its institutional policy structure in order to prevent repeating the ongoing post-IMF policy relapses.
According to him, "The IEA is seeking a strong legal backing for its economic policy proposals by leveraging the constitutional review process that the institute has initiated, which builds on the extensive work that it has already done over the past 20 or so years."
Dr. Kwakye said that Articles 178 and 179, which explicitly state the requirement for legislative approval of government expenditure and withdrawals from public money, should be carefully scrutinized to plug any gaps in order to prevent expenditure overruns and unauthorized expenditure.
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