LET'S COPE WITH SITUATION

THE price of crude oil was yesterday quoted at $118 per barrel, the highest ever, sending shock waves down the spines of operators of financial markets across the world.
The heat being generated by the financial crisis in the West, coupled with the high prices of food and crude oil, threatens the economies of most countries in the developing world.
Already, there is civil strife in some countries as a result of the high food and crude oil prices because individual budgets cannot cope with the worsening economic challenges.
Although the level of the challenges is not the same across the globe, all countries are at their wits’ end trying to come to terms with the harsh realities of our times.
In Ghana, the government has called for sacrifices from the people in order to deal with the instability on the economic front.
The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, who made the call, noted that the rising crude oil prices were fast draining the government's foreign reserves and gradually eroding the macro-economic gains chalked up over the years.
The government has managed, over the last few years, to tame inflation and reduce interest rates drastically, while maintaining the value of the cedi against all the major currencies. But whether the trend can be sustained in the face of the economic difficulties cannot be guaranteed.
The disclosure by the minister that the high prices of crude oil had forced the government to resort to borrowing, both locally and internationally, to be able to continue to buy oil must be worrying, for we all know the spiral effects of borrowing on macro-economic stability.
This practice in the past led to the high cost of money in the market, galloping inflation and the falling value of the cedi. These also led to an over-heated economy and the private sector was crowded out of business.
Presently, the government faces a dilemma in trying to maintain a balance between the constant supply of goods and services and how to make those services available to the people during these challenging times.
We find ourselves in a very tight corner now with regard to the rising cost of crude oil because the prices of petroleum products dictate living conditions in the country. Any rise in the ex-pump price of petroleum products affects the prices of goods and services and, thereby, aggravate living conditions in the country.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that our present circumstances call for open debate of the options available to us to deal with the worsening economic situation in the world.
If the options do not include a reduction in the taxes on petroleum products to ease the burden on the people, then the government must engage all interested groups in the debate to find other alternatives to make life worth living for the people.
So far, we have been spared the mass agitation that greeted the rising cost of living in other countries. The people are also feeling the pinch but they have decided to endure it, in the hope that some solutions can be found.
It is our hope that the government will reciprocate the demonstration of goodwill by the people by coming up with pragmatic policies to deal with the economic difficulties and also ensure that the economic gains so far chalked up are not eroded. We should encourage our people to depend on local food crops as a major step towards cutting down on food imports.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, calls on the government to come up with the options in a transparent and open manner by seeking the input of civil society groups, political parties, employers and, indeed, all Ghanaians in fashioning out an antidote to the worsening economic situation.