NPP’s Economic Management Team is a ‘den of liars’ - Ricketts Hagan

Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, has described the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta, Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Addison and the entire Economic Management Team (EMT) headed by Dr. Bawumia as a “den of liars” who have cooked, manipulated economic data and indicators to deceive and conceal from Ghanaians the horrible state of the economy.

According to the former Deputy Minister of Finance, stated that these incompetent administrators have been hiding behind false fiscal and macroeconomic numbers for some time now, given the erroneous impression that they are better managers of the economy.

He was responding to the controversy generated by a publication by the fact-checkghana.com of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) suggesting that government has shared different macroeconomic data with Ghanaians and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the state of the nation’s economy.

While a clarification by the country representative of the IMF to Ghana, Dr. Albert Touma Mama, vilified government on its data representations on the economy, the opposition NDC says the suggestions made by Dr. Mama give credence to allegations that the Akufo-Addo-led government.

The opposition claimed since 2017, government has been untruthful on data it shares between Ghanaians and the IMF on the state of the economy.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Ghanaweb, Ricketts-Hagan said, “We in the minority have been saying for some time now that economic figures being churned out by the NPP government were cooked. And we have challenged these numbers time and time again in the last 3 years.”

On the 6th of March 2020, we challenged Dr. Bawumia in an open letter with 230 questions and statements, which he is yet to answer, we pointed out some of these inaccuracies with data and challenged the government by computing the true fiscal deficit both in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP, the true debt stock figure, and also as a percentage of GDP. This exercise was to reveal the true state of Ghana’s economy that the government was trying to hide from Ghanaians, and we are relieved that the IMF information has vindicated us.”

He has advised the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana not to try and belittle the intelligence of Ghanaians.

“Do not undermine the minds of people due to lack of understanding or misinterpretation of economic data by the average Ghanaian. It is time for the government to come clean with the Ghanaian people and admit to this deception.”

He says the Finance Minister should appear before parliament to answer some questions in regards to IMF.

“We call on the Finance Minister to Parliament, to answer some questions. I think he has some explanation to do. This is a punitive behaviour and I think the Finance Minister should at least be sanctioned,” he concluded.