Mahama doesn’t understand how US financial system was restructured - Bawumia's spokesperson

Gideon Boako, a spokesperson for the Vice President, says former President John Dramani Mahama threw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians when the latter cited bail outs in restructuring failed banking systems during the World financial crisis.

Mr Mahama, in the maiden edition of his interaction with Ghanaians on Facebook Live, condemned the Akufo-Addo government for supervising the collapse of Ghanaian-owned financial institutions in the name of reforms.

In the interaction, the former president said government had much better options available than to collapse more than 400 financial institutions since the Akufo-Addo government took over in January 2017.

“This is not the first time Ghana has faced a crisis in our financial sector. The Financial Sector Adjustment Programme (FINSAP) during the 90s used the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Trust (NPART) as a vehicle to offload the toxic liabilities of the banks and clean out the financial sector.

“During the world financial crisis, it was not uncommon that many countries, because of the strategic nature of their domestic financial institutions, provided bailouts in exchange for equity in order to prevent a chaotic meltdown of the sector.”

But Dr. Gideon Boako in interaction with host of Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 Fm said Mr. Mahama lacks understanding of how the US resolved their banking situation, and how it was restructured.

“He didn’t really understand what happened in the American system; he only used aspects of the whole situation and applied it wrongly in his argument.”

He claimed the former leader’s take on the banking situation was purely for political gains just to win the confidence of Ghanaians so he could come back to power.

“We all saw what happened under his watch when the masses lost their huge investments without any meaningful rescue efforts by the government. Today, if somebody is offering realistic resolution of such crisis and protecting depositors’ funds, you don’t stand somewhere and throw dust into the eyes of the public,” he told host Kweku Owusu Adjei.