Former President John Dramani Mahama has lashed out at the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia led government for plunging the country into economic hardships.
John Mahama also entreated the government to stop blaming the hardship in the country on Covid-19 and insisted that the hardships presently being faced by Ghanaians are as a result of the government’s reckless election spending and the mismanagement of the economy.
According to the former President, expenditure in the 2020 elections produced the largest-ever budget deficit in the recent economic history of Ghana.
Mr. Mahama made these comments when he was speaking at the NDC Professionals Forum on Monday, September 6, 2021 at the Cedi Conference Centre of the University of Ghana.
“COVID-19 has become the convenient whipping boy and has been cited as the reason for the crisis we face now and the attendant economic hardships. Yes, COVID-19 affected the economy, and no one can dispute that. It is however not the main reason why we are in the current hole we find ourselves.”
“COVID-19 only became a pretext for reckless election-related spending, which produced the largest-ever budget deficit in the recent economic history of Ghana last year”, he said.
John Mahama further called on the government to accept responsibility for their actions which has led to the country’s economy being in a crisis.
“This government must accept that it is their mismanagement of the economy, their thirst for consumption expenditure, and the desire to spend beyond our means in order to win elections that have plunged us into the current crisis, not necessarily COVID-19″.
However, Mahama was unimpressed with assertions by the NPP that, he is the one giving Ghanaians impressions that things are hard in the country.
“Times are hard even though, the New Patriotic Party, NPP still insists times are not hard and that I am the one giving Ghanaians the impression that times are hard. This makes me wonder what kind of logic they have that Ghanaians cannot feel hardship unless I come and tell them.”