Focus on the present, stop referring to the past – Dr Kwakye tells Bawumia

Bawumia not long ago said Ghana’s economy is in good shape, Dr Kwakye

Ghana went to the IMF because of Mahama's policies and external factors, Bawumia

Bawumia defends govt’s decision to resort to IMF

Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Dr John Kwakye, has said that he finds it surprising that Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is partly blaming the previous government for the current economic challenges in the country.

He indicated that Dr Bawumia not long ago said that Ghana’s economy was in the best sharp but he is now blaming events that happened some five years for the economic difficulties in the country, 3news.com reports.

Dr John Kwakye added that even though the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government inherited some challenges from the National Democratic Congress government, this is not the time for the vice president to be referring to the past.

Also, the IEA research director said that it is a fact the external factors including the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war are impacting negatively on Ghana’s economy.

“I can grant some of them, the impact of COVID-19, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war. Of course, the NPP came to meet a challenging economic situation when it took over in January 2017.

“There were a lot of arrears, the energy sector arrears, arrears to contractors and then, of course, they implemented the financial sector bailouts which also brought the additional cost to the budget,” he disclosed on TV3.

He continued: “But we were in an IMF programme and then we exited from the programme, so one would have thought that when we exited at least we were in a pretty comfortable position that is why we exited.

"So I am not comfortable that we have to go back five and a half years and bring things that happened so many years ago to the present.”

Dr Kwakye made these remarks while reacting to comments made by Dr Bawumia on the reason why Ghana had to go for an IMF bailout.

The vice president in recent comments alluded to some policies of former President John Dramani Mahama and external factors including the COVID-19 pandemic being responsible for the economic difficulties in the country.

According to him, Mahama’s policies resulted in the Energy Sector Excess Capacity Payments and the Banking Sector Clean-Up which together with the COVID-19 and the Russia- Ukraine war have made life unbearable for Ghanaians.

Speaking at an event on Thursday to outline Ghana’s achievements in digitalisation, the vice president indicated that the government had no choice but to seek an International Monetary Fund programme to help stabilise the economy.

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