Former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama has the country’s economy under the New Patriotic Party led by Akufo-Addo is shambolic and very ill.
Speaking at the African Business Conference at the Harvard Business School in the United States of America recently, Mahama said: “In my country Ghana, however, our economy is doing badly. Ballooning deficits, double-digit inflation, among others are some of the symptoms of a very ill economy. Unbridled borrowing from the capital markets creating budget deficits. Ghana went into the pandemic without adequate buffers”.
He said, “The pandemic has generally affected the economies of African nations, but some countries have sailed through more successfully than others due to the resilience of their economies, discipline and prudent use of their resources.”
A few weeks ago, Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said the country is a “proud” nation of “strong” people with the capability to find her own solutions to problems and, thus, will not run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help.
Speaking also at the third in a series of town hall meetings in the Northern regional capital of Tamale in February, Mr Ofori-Atta said: “… I can tell you, as my colleague Deputy Minister said, we are not going to the IMF; whatever we do, we are not; the consequences are dire, we are a proud nation, we have the resources, we have the capacity”.
“Don’t let anybody tell you – like when Joshua, Caleb and the 10 others went to spy on the Promised Land and only two of them came to say that, ‘We can do it, and the 10 went around the community murmuring, ‘You can’t; da da da da da da’; we are not people of short sight and we had to move on, so, let’s think of us as who we are: a proud, strong people, the shining star of Africa and we have the capacity to do what we want to do if only we can speak by one language and ensure that we burden-share in the issues ahead”.
Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo has said his government is not unable to tackle the economic crisis buffeting Ghana currently.
Addressing a meeting with the Council of State at the Jubilee House on Tuesday, 22 March 2022, Mr Akufo-Addo said: “It is no secret that our economy is going through difficult times”.
“It is also no secret that we are not alone in that exercise”, he stressed, adding: “The phenomenon that we’re facing, applies to many parts of the world as well. But that doesn’t, therefore, mean that government is impotent in trying to find solutions”.
Days earlier, the President had said his government needed to take some difficult but necessary decisions to spur growth, development and restore the economy.
“We need to undertake the difficult but necessary fiscal and other measures that will enable us to maintain the 2021 and higher rates of growth in the immediate years ahead of us, to develop and strengthen our economy, and to help improve the living standards of us all,” the President said at the 92nd Speech and Prize-Giving Day of St. Augustine’s College in Cape Coast on Saturday, 19 March 2021.
He noted that the Ghanaian economy grew at a provisional 5.2% in the first three quarters of 2021, with GDP growth for 2021 projected at 5.6%, as against 0.4% in 2020.
The President also assured Ghanaians that the policies being implemented by his government, in the wake of the difficulties occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, will help the economy rebound faster than anticipated.
Acknowledging the difficult times the nation is going through, President Akufo-Addo noted that every country on the face of the planet is going through challenges brought forth largely by the pandemic of COVID-19.
“Ghana is not the only country faced with extraordinary increases in global freight rates, strong inflationary pressures, dramatically rising fuel prices, unprecedented volatility of stock markets, and tighter global financing conditions. These are global phenomena,” he said.
The President continued, “Nonetheless, the government continues to work hard to address these issues, and I am certain that, sooner, rather than later, our economy, through the implementation of Government’s one hundred-billion-cedi (GH¢100 billion) Ghana CARES Obaatanpa Programme, will rebound from the ravages of the pandemic, bringing in its wake stability, development, progress and prosperity for all Ghanaians.”
