Former President, John Dramani Mahama, has called for a national dialogue on the economy of the country, following its recent downgrade by Standard and Poor’s credit ratings.

According to him, there “appears to be no end to the problems with the Ghanaian economy”, with the recent downgrade to CCC+/C Junk status. He revealed that the “steep depreciation of the Ghana Cedi in recent days”, clearly shows that the mid-year review of the 2022 budget failed to win back the confidence of the investor community and the Ghanaian public.

“A national dialogue on the economy, bringing some of our best brains together will serve us well, even as we prepare for debt restructuring and negotiation of an IMF programme.”
John Mahama

Contained in a Facebook post, Mr Mahama indicated that unfortunately, no credible remedial plans have been put forward by the government to salvage the economy.

Commenting on the downgrade of the economy, a former Deputy Minister for Information, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, revealed that the Akufo-Addo government has lost touch with the citizenry and their needs. He explained that the incumbent government has prioritised “cheap political” praise over implementing policies that will resuscitate the economy.

“We have a President who has lost complete touch with reality. We also have the head of the Economic Management team who has completely ignored the terrible economic situation, the continuous nose-dive and depreciation of the cedi and our current junk rating status, the hardship and inflation and is rather hankering after cheap region-political scores.”
Felix Kwakye Ofosu

Economic predicament of the country

Mr Ofosu noted that the current crisis of the economy must serve as a wakeup call to President Akufo-Addo and his officials for them to steer the country on the right course. He emphasized that government should stop being arrogant and seek the needed assistance of experts to prevent the country from running into a ditch.

“We have a government that is stubborn, obstinate and totally arrogant of the very people they are governing. They will not listen to anything you tell them.”
Felix Kwakye Ofosu

The downgrade rating by S&P has sparked outcry by some stakeholders in the country.

The Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Dr John Kwakye, expressed worry that the global ratings will have an impact on investor confidence. He stated that the latest ratings will equally have a “tremendous impact on our economy”.

The IEA director of research indicated that currently, Ghana’s access to the international capital market has been “virtually blocked” and the downgrade will further hinder the process of getting access to credit facilities in the next few months.

Contained in S&P’s ratings, it highlighted that despite government’s earlier move this year with the introduction of some revenue generation measures such as the E-Levy, the Tax Exemptions Bill, and some cuts in discretionary spending, S&P revealed that while these changes could improve revenue generation going forward, the situation remains challenging.

Similarly, S&P reviewed the country’s economic outlook as negative. The negative outlook, it explained, reflects Ghana’s limited commercial financing options, and constrained external and fiscal buffers.