Network to promote shared growth

A NATIONAL platform of civil society organisations, the Economic Justice Network (EJN), has resolved to promote trade and finance reforms to ensure that the major drivers of the country’s economic growth spring from domestic and regional sources.

The EJN, devoted to equitable national economic development, said it would roll out series of activities that would go to transform domestic economic sectors, actors and interests and improve their inter-linkages for increased productivity.

Speaking at the re-launch of the network in Accra, Mr Tetteh Hormeku of the Third World Network-Africa (TWN), said the activities of the network would also promote an inclusive growth and development through equitable re-distribution and realignment of production capacities within the economy, as well as improvement in productivity-centred livelihoods that supported socio-economic justice and poverty eradication in the country.

The EJN was formed in 2005 in protest of what they described as continuing policies and experiences of economic injustice.

He said the network had been at the forefront of advocacy on economic policy issues affecting ordinary Ghanaians, especially against what he described as the “discredited Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)”, the planned free trade pact between European Union and Ghana (and other African and Caribbean countries) that threatens to damage the local economy and undermine the future of ordinary Ghanaians.

According to Mr Hormeku, the fundamentals of the country’s economy, like many other African economies, remain extremely fragile after three decades of uncontrolled liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation, as those policies and models had restrained and undermined the structural transformation of the economy to benefit ordinary Ghanaians.

“Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) strong performance in recent years had been due largely to the increased international demand and high prices for its mineral and agricultural raw material exports. By the same token, the economy is even more vulnerable to violent external shocks,” he said.

“We have pursued economic policies that privileges foreign private sector. Unless we are able to counter address pressure exerted by foreign policy on our governments, we can never ensure economic development. Taxes are sources of revenue so why do we stress the few tax sources, especially the informal sector,” he asked.

The social activist emphasised the EJN was not a new entity but largely a synergy of knowledge to confront the socio-economic challenges, adding “we should use our own knowledge and experience to formulate policies so they become a reference point to the struggle against bad policies”.

With the re-launch, the EJN will immediately start a national advocacy campaign.