[ 2015-04-28 ]

Where Is The Senchi Consensus – Bawumia
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) vice
presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia is
questioning the relevance of the Senchi Forum held
in May 2014 since the decisions arrived at are yet
to be implemented.

Speaking on US based Sahara TV, Dr. Bawumia said
the Mahama government’s Senchi forum was a
façade. In May 2014, the government organized a
national economic forum in which experts from the
various sectors of the economy, political
parties’ representatives and the leadership of
labour unions met to deliberate on the effective
ways of dealing with the nation’s socio-economic
challenges.

The NPP however boycotted the forum, citing the
late delivery of the invitation as the primary
cause for their decision. The forum ended with the
adoption of a 22 point communiqué, called the
“Senchi Consensus.”

The Minority Members of Parliament (MPs)
questioned the effectiveness of the consensus
saying, it failed to address the core issue of
corruption which is hurting the country’s
economy.

According to Dr. Bawumia, although the NPP
received heavy public backlash for critiquing the
consensus, “the events after Senchi have proven
us right.”

He said: “Senchi came out with a 22 point
recommendation. Now you ask yourself how many of
the 22 recommendation have been implemented.”

The former Deputy Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor
pointed out that one of the key recommendations
out of the Senchi report was that taxes will no
longer be increased in order to reduce the tax
burden on the Ghanaians and also recommended that
that new mechanisms should be devised to widen the
tax net.

“This was the key recommendation out if Senchi.
Immediately after that, they went for the budget
and what happened was that they increased all
sorts of taxes and in 2015, they have increased
again, all sorts of taxes so this Senchi was
supposed to be the considered opinion of our
experts and now you’ve totally ignored that so
what was it for?” he queried.

Dr. Bawumia stressed that the NPP really doesn’t
“think it was a sincere effort to bring
consensus in the management of the economy.”

Source - Daily Guide

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