Vice President Jane Nana Opoku-Agyeman says the new Presidential Advisory Group on the Economy will focus on practical, independent advice aimed at shifting the country from “crisis management to durable success,” as the administration seeks to rebuild confidence after years of economic strain.
“After a period of acute strain, visibility is returning and confidence is gradually rebuilding, even as we continue to navigate global and domestic challenges,” Opoku-Agyeman said at the group’s inauguration. “This moment must be used not only to recover, but to reset our economic direction.”
Speaking at the inauguration, she said the group’s role would be to complement existing state institutions by “offering insight, testing assumptions and proposing solutions informed by global best practice and grounded in Ghana’s realities.”
Opoku-Agyeman said the group would prioritise “dialogue, intellectual honesty and collective responsibility,” and deliver recommendations aligned with Ghana’s long-term development goals.
As a former academic, she urged members to consistently frame their work around what the economy means in practical terms for citizens, rather than as an abstract concept.
“Beyond an abstract concept, it should mean many things,” she said, including stability for teachers and nurses, fair prices and reliable markets for farmers, predictable costs and access to credit for traders and small businesses, stable incomes and affordable housing and transport for workers, opportunities and skills for young people, and security for labourers and decent care for the elderly.
She said economic policy must translate into tangible improvements in everyday life, including reliable electricity, safe water and dignity in work.
“Our task is sobering,” she said. “To conceptualize the kind of support that makes their economy feel less distant and more everyday possibility.”
Opoku-Agyeman said economic transformation must be treated as a national project requiring “discipline, trust and shared responsibility” across government, the private sector, labour, civil society and development partners.
“Our pledge is to provide independent, thorough and practical leadership to support this collective effort,” she said.
