Reality of economy exposing lies of Akufo-Addo’s government – Mahama

Former president John Mahama has said the economic hardship Ghanaians are facing now is exposing the “lies” of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

Mr Mahana also believes the government will soon be exposed the more, as the reality of the ground is in variance with the economic figures being put out by the government’s Economic Management Team (EMT) led by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia.

“You can do all the lies and propaganda with the economy [that] you like, the reality of the people’s lives will expose you,” Mr. Mahama said at an economic lecture organised by Coalition for Restoration and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Accra Thursday, April 4, 2019.

His comment comes a day after vice president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia had addressed a Town Hall Meeting in Accra over the economy of the country.

At the event, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, among other things, attributed the recent depreciation of the Ghana cedi – one of the major challenges of the country’s economy – to directives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“One of the conditions that the Bank of Ghana had to meet was to increase its net international reserves to the level of December 2018. To increase the net international reserves, however, meant that the Bank of Ghana could not sell any foreign exchange in the market. They had to essentially hold their hands to the back and could not intervene on the market during this particular period.”

“Looking to the future,” Dr Bawumia noted, “one can say that Ghana’s future under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is bright and the prospects of growth are promising.”

But at the NDC lecture, former president Mahama indicated the reality was different from the said policies the NPP claimed it had put out for Ghanaians.

Bolgatanga Central MP, Mr Isaac Adongo, who was the main speaker at the lecture, explained that NPP was short-changing Ghanaians because the government had taken loans with high-interest rates only to “consume”, leaving capital expenditure out.

He said the Mahama administration rather borrowed to build hospitals, roads, schools, power plants that solved the country’s power challenges, among others yet the NPP had nothing to offer in terms of their massive borrowing spree.