President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
• The president says the flagbearer of NDC in the 2020 elections can’t lecture him on economic management
• He said John Mahama’s tenure as the president of Ghana was a disaster and his economic management was abysmal
• Akufo-Addo made this known in an interview on Vov radio
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said former President John Dramani Mahama cannot give him lectures on economic management because his time as the President of Ghana from 2013 to 2016 was an unmitigated disaster.
According to him, Mahama’s track record in terms of economic management was abysmal.
Speaking on Vov radio during his tour in the Volta Region on Friday, September 10, Akufo-Addo was asked about a statement made by the former President, in which he [Akufo-Addo] was accused of mismanaging the economy.
In response, the President stated, “I wonder whether this statement was made tongue in cheek by the former president. When you look at the record that this political leader, who can accuse my government of mismanagement, there are a few facts that when you put on the table to compare his performance and mine, it would tell you whether what I am offering the people is economic mismanagement.”
He continued, “I wonder what words should we describe his [Mahama] stewardship of Ghana. It is an unmitigated disaster, that’s what I would call him.”
He indicated that, under the tenure of John Mahama, the economic growth rate in 2016 stood at 3.4%, the lowest in two decades; with all other macroeconomic indicators pointing in the wrong direction.
“Inflation, when he left office, was 15.4%; today, at the end of July, which are the last hard facts from the Statistical Service, it’s 9%. Interest rates are always a good determinant of how the economy is operating, 32% in December 2016, today, it is 20.6%. We are talking about treasury bill decline in interest rate, we are talking about the trade deficit that was $1.8 billion in 2016, to a trade surplus of $2.6 billion at the end of 2019,” Akufo-Addo explained.
He observed that, if the statistics, which prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, led to the country being rated as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with a GDP of 7%, “can be considered economic mismanagement,” then what would be the description of the economy managed by John Dramani Mahama, which took the country to IMF.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo further stated, “if the economic forum is going to be a repetition of the so-called Senchi Consensus, then I think I have to spare the people of Ghana this sort of development.”
“The Senchi Consensus was an unmitigated disaster, out of it we went into the embrace of the IMF with all the difficulties that came from there and the disarray it pointed to in the economy of our country,” he added whilst responding to John Dramani Mahama’s calls for an economic forum.
The President, then said, former President Mahama “is not on strong ground when he is talking about the economy. His track record, I am reluctant to use these strong words, but in normal parlance, I would say it is abysmal and, therefore, he has no lessons to give me at all in the management of the economy.”