Business News of Tuesday, 7 September 2021
Source: gbcghanaonline.com
2021-09-07
Former President John Mahama has expressed worry about the current state of Ghana’s economy, saying the economy is in crisis and must not be blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Mahama attributed the state of the economy to reckless economic management by the NPP Government since 2017.
Speaking at the NDC State of the Economy Forum in Accra, he said the government now cites Covid-19 as the “whipping boy” for the current state of the economy. Mr Mahama said Ghana’s debt has ballooned to unsustainable levels, forcing the government to use tax revenues to service debts.
The government, he said, has neglected calls by people like himself to hold a forum to seek alternate views on how to save the economy from collapse.
Mr Mahama called on the government to accept that it is mismanagement and not Covid-19 that has led to the current economic crisis in Ghana.
“This level of leakage will definitely affect the ability of any government to deliver on its mandate and guarantee citizens an appreciable standard of living,” former President Mahama noted.
Mr Mahama proposed that the government explore more equitable ways of making the lives of Ghanaians more meaningful than reducing the country’s problems to mere “fancy slogans”.
“So the problems facing our country should not be reduced to a handful of fancy slogans and poorly conceived implemented half measures, aimed at obtaining shop-lift political gratification only to have them inflict deeper socio-economic wounds on our country and leave more problems than resolve,” former President Mahama said.