Greenhill roundtable charts roadmap for economy

The ‘Greenhill Roundtable’ a collection of eminent economic leaders have met to deliberate on critical national issues pertaining to the country’s economic growth and transformation and its relation with development partners.

Spearheaded by the Centre for Policy Analysis, the ‘Greenhill Roundtable’ discussion was premised on the background on the desire for an accelerated growth and development of the country, the recent middle income status, and the impending oil economy, increased South-South cooperation in the face of the changing international division of labour, coupled with the emergence of new economic centers such as the BRICS and the expected changes in the nature of the country’s relationship with Development Partners.

In recognizing that the above issues together create new opportunities and challenges for more effective economic management and governance of the country, Tito Mboweni (former Governor, Reserve Bank of South Africa, former Minister of Labour for South Africa, and currently Chairman of AngloGold Ashanti) was invited to chair and facilitate the roundtable discussion attended by a group of independent analysts, thinkers and eminent persons.

Issues discussed included Medium term fiscal options in terms of size, efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditures.

Revenue mobilization in the context of a rebased middle income economy and the scope and instruments for domestic and external resource mobilization.

Public sector reforms and remuneration and the need for government to use the pay reform process to strengthen public sector institutions by improving human capital.

Public debt consolidation and restructuring and the need to consolidate the management of government liabilities into a comprehensive debt management strategy and to maintain sustainability.

Also discussed were institutions for sound economic management and governance.

Dr. Joe Abbey, Executive Director of CEPA, noted that: “the group, having deliberated widely has identified as way forward to further research and engage widely with stakeholders and public officials on the issues, and to hold quarterly roundtables on agreed themes with the view to engaging government and development partners on the best options for the country’s forward march.

The workshop was targeted at brainstorming on the critical economic issues and providing policy analysis and research which would seek to track progress towards achieving sustained growth and create jobs. It would also propose various economic strategies and identify key lessons for economic growth, he said

It would as well seek to leverage and coordinate a network of experts from local think tanks and other institutions across various sector of the economy in implementing research agenda which feeds into advisory work in individual government economic agenda.

It would engage stakeholder conferences with institutions like the churches seek to provide analytical exercise and recommendations on how governments can harness their expanding engagements to support economic transformation agendas, including the creation of jobs, the development of skills, the diversification of exports the expansion of investments in infrastructure and the modernization of agriculture.