�Wise Politicians� Must Stand By Gov�t In Times Of Crisis � Mahama

President John Mahama says rather than predicting doom for the country, �wise� Ghanaian Politicians should help him scale the current economic hurdles confronting the Nation. �I thank and salute the wise Ghanaian politicians who understand that the right attitude in such times is to assist the government and stop predicting disasters�, Mr Mahama wrote on his facebook page. He argued that such support is important �because in a democratic country such as ours, the government is the people's government. It is your government�. According to him, �a nation has to be united when facing any kind of political or economic challenges� because the Government of the day ��does everything necessary to lead our country and to attain the development goals it has announced�. The local currency is currently nose-diving against the dollar and other major international currencies. It has depreciated by about 7% since January 2014. The Central Bank of Ghana, besides announcing a tall list of measures to control the forex market and by so doing, strengthening the Cedi, has also injected US$20 million into critical sectors of the economy towards the same end. Economic Watchers and critics have blamed Ghana�s huge appetite for imports for the problem. They argue that increasing production and exports could help the situation. Ghana imports about US$600 million worth of rice every year. About US$400 million worth of sugar, frozen food, tomatoes, vegetable oil, amongst a whole raft of other food are imported into Ghana yearly. President Mahama recently told the BBC that the Government is aiming at stopping the US$1 billion yearly food imports in the future as part of long term measures to shore up the Cedi against the dollar.