- It's unfortunate that in 2019 we have to come back to this but open defecation cannot be a characteristic of a country hoping to be counted among the developed ones.
- MASLOC has been revamped and is getting back to do what it was set up to do. There has been strict adherence to credit procedures and prudent management of the credit recovery process. These have resulted in a recovery rate of 89% of loans administered under a pilot scheme introduced in 2017.
- MASLOC was given an amount of GH¢35 million in October 2018 for disbursement. This is the first time an amount of such magnitude has been given to the Centre outside of an election year.
- So far, 87% of the monies disbursed from MASLOC have gone to women, i.e. to 24,582 women. The 2016 NPP Manifesto promised to allocate 50% of MASLOC funds to women, and we have surpassed this promise.
- In 2019, MASLOC will give increased attention to youth start-up businesses in vegetable farming, poultry, piggery and fish farming
- Because of Planting for food and jobs, Ghana no longer imports plantain from Cote D'iVOIRE. The minister of Agric needs to be commended immensely.
- 7,000 jobs to be created under the AFJ from between 2019 - 2021.
- Ministry of finance is to set up a $1billion fund for the housing sector for small to medium income earners.
- The woes of the banking sector have also been a case of long-standing bad practices that we, previously, had been unable or unwilling to deal with, which we are now having to deal with in the most painful manner.
- The clean-up of the banking sector has cost the national treasury GH¢12.7 billion.
-It was necessary to sanitise the sector, minimise job losses, and protect deposits of 1,147,366 Ghanaians and their businesses and the people they employed.
- In all this, I have been anxious that our local banks are helped and given as much support as possible, but l will not be on the side of criminal behaviour if that is discovered.
- I would urge that we are all patient for the investigations to be made in a calm manner.
- The MenzGold debacle is a tragic phenomenon that appears to have occurred in plain sight, and affected a lot of people, in spite of warnings from official institutions.
- I admonish all Ghanaians to learn the necessary lessons for the future, even as State institutions work to bring a resolution to the matter, and those who are seen to have indulged in criminal activities, are brought to justice.
- The existence of a body such as the newly inaugurated Presidential Financial Stability Advisory Council would have forestalled the emergence of the Menzgold saga.
- Will make it difficult, in future, for any such scheme to get off the ground.
- Thanks to the programme for “Planting for Food and Jobs”, admirably organised by that outstanding Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.
- This House stands informed, that, in 2018, exports of food crops such as cassava, rice, yellow and white maize, soya, plantain, cowpea and yam were made FROM Ghana to Burkina Faso, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire in considerable quantities.
- We had a bumper harvest of produce, and, last year, we did not import a single grain of maize.
- US $1 million loan money has been earmarked for the construction of twelve (12) landing sites and two (2) fishing harbours in some selected fishing communities in the country.
- Recently, I cut the sod to commence work at the Jamestown Harbour Complex, which, like the development of Elmina Fishing Harbour, is part of our plans for the fishing sector.
