Member of Parliament’s finance committee, Dr Stephen Amoah, has revealed that some of the primary micro indicators in the economy are better than when the NPP took over from ex-President John Dramani Mahama.
According to him, the hardships in the country are indeed as a result of external factors beyond government. He indicated that hikes in fuel and import prices have affected economies globally and the situation isn’t exclusive to Ghana.
Dr Amoah explained that although the country’s economy wasn’t the best prior to covid and the Russia-Ukraine war, its GDP, inflations and interest rates were faring better. However, he stated that these external factors has among other things, extensively affected productivity and has contributed to revenue shortfalls.
“Even now, some of the primary micro indicators are even still better than when we took over from ex-President John Dramani Mahama; that we were not going through this situation. All what we are saying is that, there is hardship but the hardship has been actually as a result of the fact that there is global crisis. Sometimes, they compare Ghana to French-speaking countries, they derive their economic central policy from banks, it is not like ours…
Dr Stephen Amoah
Commenting on statements made by the Managing Director of IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, that Ghana’s current economy is as a result of exogenous factors like COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine and not as a result of mismanagement, Dr Amoah stated that the minority is acting in a manner typical of an opposition with its disagreement of the IMF boss’s statement. He emphasized that the economic situation is a global issue and must be treated as such.
“Former President Mahama, respectfully, is just doing politics and you should know even Africa here, we have between 52 to 54 countries, definitely you’ll have some of the countries Ghana is doing better than and others are also doing better than Ghana… Even those countries that are better structured in terms of their economy, post-COVID, inflation rate has been increased by about 400%…”
Dr Stephen Amoah
Hardships in economy is a global issue
The Nhyiaeso legislator highlighted that teachers, nurses, magistrate courts, aviation, postmasters and railway workers across the world are either on strike or threatening to strike. He emphasized that most of the countries in the world today are suffering and people complaining in the country about hardships have the right to do so, but the issue is on a global scale.
“… You won’t get all the countries having the same primary micro indicators performing at the same level. Before COVID and the Russian war, was the situation like this?…
Dr Stephen Amoah
On his part, lawyer and member of the NDC Communications team, Edudzi Tamakloe, revealed that the IMF boss statement is simply diplomatic talk. He stated that because Ghana is a member of IMF, when it comes to dealing with member countries, especially those that have applied for programmes like this, the IMF is tempted to use “positive language in terms of providing a certain outlook than being very harsh”.
“Already, the country is virtually bankrupt, so you do not want to use anymore harsher words to describe and that explains why the IMF boss decided to go on the tangent she did. In fact, the records will show that even Sri Lanka had set a good [precedent] from the IMF before it eventually went bad. So, the evidence is there that anytime the IMF speaks this well, the underlying issues are always terrible.”
Edudzi Tamakloe
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