The Ranking Member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, says the mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy by the Akufo-Addo-led government will take some 20 years to be fixed.
According to him, had officials of the governing party listened to his wise counsel for an urgent bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the situation would have been better.
The comments of the former deputy Finance Minister come amid complaints from the general populace over rising hardships in the country, galloping inflation, and cedi dollar depreciation, among others.
Speaking to Kumasi-based Oyerepa TV, the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam MP rallied Ghanaians to speak against the NPP administration’s terrible policy choices, which he described as scary.
“The way Akufo Addo is managing the economy, it will take us 20 years to repair it. We must all rise and speak up against the mismanagement. The government must admit that they will crash the country so they must live above the politics and ask for help to solve the economic problems. NPP has shown clearly that they can’t solve the problem but rather have aggravated the problem.”
He also added that the mismanagement of the economy by President Akufo-Addo had compelled him to write a book titled “How not to run an economy,” saying the President has set all the negative records in managing the economy since the country attained independence.
He cited reckless spending and borrowing to back his claims of mismanagement by the government.
Dr Ato Forson’s verdict comes when the country’s economic outlook has been downgraded further to junk status by several international credit rating agencies.
The latest is Fitch which, for the second time in 2022, downgraded Ghana’s creditworthiness to ‘CC’ from ‘CCC’.
Attributing reasons for the downgrade, Fitch said, it reflects the increased likelihood that Ghana will pursue a debt restructuring given mounting financing stress, with surging interest costs on domestic debt and a prolonged lack of access to Eurobond markets.