Dr Kojo Asante, Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement at the Centre for Democratic Development, says the promises given in the manifestoes of the major political parties are not pragmatic.

Reacting to the many tax incentives, tax cuts and freebies mentioned in the manifestos of the two major political parties, Mr Asante wondered if the political parties fully considered the country's current economic situation when drawing up plans for their manifestos

“In terms of the feasibility of it, knowing the financial situations that we are in, you begin to wonder how much time they spent on this? How seriously did they take this?”

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Dr. Kojo Asante does not believe that the freebies and tax cuts promised in the various manifestoes are feasible, especially in view of Covid-19 and its attendant effects.

“Because if you take the economy, for instance, everybody knows that once you deduct emoluments, you deduct payments, you deduct transfers, interests and so on you really don’t have any money left. We know that our debt burden is just ballooning.

“It’s much more difficult to go and raise money. So knowing all of these things, if you see a long list of promises and even when people are interrogated and say ‘where are you going to get the money?’ they say ‘we’ll cross the bridge when we get there’.

According to him, such promises can inadvertently lead to serious implications on the financial health of the country.

“But there is a problem with that because as a politician, yes, you can gamble because you’re seeking power, you want to assure the public that yes we’ll figure it out when you get there but the kind of choices you make can have serious implications to the financial health of this country.”