Covid19 slows TT’s Ghana response

The international slump in oil prices and effects of the global coronavirus pandemic have prevented this country from accelerating initiatives which were agreed to by the governments of TT and Ghana, last month. The Prime Minister said so on Friday during a television interview at his home in Mason Hall, Tobago.

Dr Rowley visited Ghana in early March as a special guest of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to attend the country’s 63rd anniversary Independence celebrations at Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti region of Southern Ghana.

He also used the trip to build stronger ties between the two countries.“This mile­stone that we’ve marked will man­i­fest it­self fur­ther in the kind of con­tacts that we are try­ing to build,” Dr Row­ley had said during the visit.

On his return, he said there was much TT could learn from Ghana in the areas of agriculture, transport and energy.Agri­cul­ture is one of Ghana’s ma­jor eco­nom­ic sec­tors, pro­vid­ing em­ploy­ment on a for­mal and in­for­mal ba­sis.

Dr Rowley had expressed his in­ten­tion is to re-de­vel­op the sec­tor, locally, as part of Gov­ern­ment’s eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts.

Dr Rowley said on Friday the West-African country has been proactive in pushing ahead with the initiatives.

“Unfortunately, the developments that are happening around the world are basically preventing us from accelerating. But the Ghanaians have kept their part of the bargain. They have sent us three draft documents for our perusal before we talk about signature,” he said.

“Our people in Trinidad and Tobago are working on those drafts. We had a series of dates to do certain things by now and July 1. The Ghanaians have kept their part on the first date and we are now required to respond by the second date.

“But you know we are in the situation that we are in and we are still working on it hoping to be able to respond. Might be a few days late but we are working on the positions we had anticipated in early March,” he added.