'I’m shocked over Ofori-Atta’s abysmal performance' – Mahama

Former President John Mahama says he has been shocked by the underperformance of Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta.

According to the NDC flagbearer, considering the number of resources his administration bequeathed to the Akufo-Addo administration, the government should have done much better than they have done.

“The IMF has been a bit hypocritical in all these issues, we complained that the finance minister was cooking the books and that and he was not including big-ticket expenditure to the data. He used that to fool all the international agencies, he used that to fool the IMF, he used to fool fitch, he used that to fool the economic intelligence unit that they were better managers of the economy and but that is not true,” Mr. Mahama. told TV XYZ in an interview Friday.

He added: “With the kind of resources we left him, I’m surprised and shocked at his very abysmal performance. We did all we did with just one oil field and now he has many but look at the huge debt and still they have nothing to show aside Free SHS which even being funded from our oil revenue. We’ve always warned that Ofori Atta is cooking the books and they didn’t listen.”

Claims in 2019

In November 2019, Mr Mahama accused Mr Ofori-Atta of making payments outside the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) so he can hide, what he (Mr Mahama) claims to be the true state of the economy.

The computerised GIFMIS facilitates budget preparation and execution; accounting and financial reporting; cash management, assets management, as well as human resource and payroll management.

Speaking to party leaders and supporters of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the UK on Sunday, 27 October 2019, Mr Mahama said the Finance Minister and the Akufo-Addo government are hiding several things so they can paint a fine picture of the economy.

“There are many things that are going on; the economy is painted as being very rosy, various figures are being thrown about just to show that the economy is doing better but there are a lot of things the government is hiding from you.

“They are showing you a better balance sheet because they are misclassifying a lot of things and hiding things from the budget; they are making payments outside the GIFMIS,” he alleged.