The Leader of the Minority caucus in Ghana’s Parliament and MP for Tamale South Constituency, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu has said that President Akufo-Addo failed to take responsibility for leading Ghana into economic hardships during his address yesterday.
The Minority Leader was speaking on the ‘Super Morning Show’ when he claimed that, the content of the President’s address yesternight was as though he was campaigning to be elected into office as he failed to touch on the core issues.
“The President failed to take and accept responsibility for leading Ghana into this economic crisis. For me, that is my deepest concern and worry. He simply should have said that I take responsibility for the economic crises I have created and emphasise that I borrowed excessively. He appeared as if he’s still on a campaign platform.”
Haruna Iddrisu, Minority Leader
Haruna Iddrisu observed that, the address was a repetition of the 2022 budget. “It was more or less a mini 2022 budget that he read. Many of the issues he raised, were earlier raised by the budget of 2022 where he said that, they wanted to increase revenue,” he said.
In a nut shell, the Minority Leader opined that, the content of the President’s speech was completely misplaced because, the President appeared to have majored on minored issues and said next to nothing about the major ones.
The Minority Leader could not seem to understand the place of an issue like how Government intends to reduce debt to GDP to 55% in the next six (6) was in the President’s address when in his opinion, a weightier issue like the President’s admission that Government has borrowed excessively was nowhere to be found.
Since President Akufo-Addo will no longer be President in 2028, Haruna Iddrisu was not expecting such an issue to be mentioned in an address meant to provide immediate economic guidelines. He quizzed “where will he [President Akufo-Addo] be post 2024?”
Haruna Iddrisu observed that the President was smart about the causes of some of the problems Ghana is facing. He wasn’t honest about the causes of poverty in the Country for example.
“He must emphasis the number of young people who are unemployed and who are likely to be unemployed and cannot see any future in the next decade of their lives and how much that will contribute to exercebating poverty in our Country.”
Haruna Iddrisu, Minority Leader
President Akufo-Addo Addresses the Nation
On Sunday, October 30, 2022, at exactly 8PM, the President addressed the entire Nation.
According to the information ministry, the President’s address focused on twelve (12) measures to help ease the ongoing hardships in the Country.
The twelve(12) measures included, Government’s desire to restore macro-economic stability through an IMF programme, tackle cost of living by working to stabilize prices of petroleum, restore debt stability by reducing debt to GDP ration to 55% by 2028, encourage traders to tone down proliferating , tackle currency speculation to limit volatilities of the cedi.
Since the President’s address yesternight, many financial experts and political commentators have discussed the content of the address.
Suleman Braimah of the Media Foundation of West Africa has said, “the President touched on so many things except the real problems that we face.”
Private Legal Practitoner, Mr. Martin Kpebu has also mentioned that, all what President Akufo-Addo did yesternight, was to sloganarise.
“It does not cut muster. This is not sufficient. What he has said is basically looking at candidate Akufo-Addo in 2016, sloganeering, that is what it is”
Martin Kpebu
Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah was on Peace FM’s Kokrooko this morning, to explain the core elements of the President’s address yesternight.
He expanded the various measures President Akufo-Addo mentioned and explained how those measures will help stabilize the ongoing tensions in the Country.
The Minister mentioned that, the twelve (12) measures were not going to magically turn Ghana’s fortunes around. He noted that, without cooperation and compliance by the general public there was going to be little or no change at all.
According to Oppong-Nkrumah, the President does not intend to be addressing the Nation weekly like he did during the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, but will be doing so periodically as and when need be.
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