Big economies also in ICU over coronavirus – Kwaku Baaku to Mahama

Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako has told former President John Dramani that the coronavirus pandemic has hit hard at all economies globally.

He said the impact of the COVID-19 has brought strong economies on their knees.

Mr Baako noted Mr Mahama was ridiculing Ghana’s economy with his comments that the local economy is currently in the ICU and on ventilators.

In a Facebook Live session on Thursday, April 23, 2020, dubbed: ‘John Dramani Mahama in a Digital Conversation’, the former President said this about the economy: “… It is always necessary when you are building an economy to have enough buffers and create fiscal space so that when you are faced with a shock or adversity, you are easily able to overcome it.”

“Unfortunately, this government has used a lot of propaganda saying the economy has been the best that we have ever had since independence. Unfortunately, just one month of coronavirus, the economy is in ICU. If we didn’t run to the IMF for the one billion rapid credit facility, it is possible that in the next month, probably, salaries would not have been paid and, so, our economy is on ventilators, and it needs thinking to rescue it from the ICU.”

But speaking on Peace FM’s Korkokoo programme Wednesday May 6, Mr Baako said : “All the big economies in the world are on their knees with all of them in the ICU and on ventilators.”

He added : “We haven’t gone back to IMF because we (government) have mismanaged and going for the program. There’s a distinction.

“This return to IMF, quote unquote, is not the same IMF entry we made in 2015 or so . . . The conditions, the circumstances and indeed the conditionalities and other things are totally different. So, you can’t do that. When you do that, you actually ridiculing the situation and indeed you’re inviting people to look from a purely political perspective,” he said.