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Business News of Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

'If I am a vice president, how can a finance minister bully me?' – Ken Agyapong asks

Kennedy Agyapong, Assin Central Member of Parliament play videoKennedy Agyapong, Assin Central Member of Parliament

Assin Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong has taken on the vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia, claiming that the second gentleman has allowed himself to be bullied by the embattled finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

Agyapong in a viral audio making the rounds on social media throughout Tuesday, November 29, is heard ostensibly addressing a party gathering where he is being cheered by the audience.

He alleges further that the only way out of the current economic headwinds is to take the country from people who serially theorize about solutions to known challenges and hand it over to people with practical hands-on experience.

“If you are a Vice President, how do you stay there for Finance Minister to bully you? If I am a vice president, how can a finance minister bully me? And now you come back and say you have not been given the opportunity.

“What else do you want us to give you to prove that you are effective?” the outspoken lawmaker who is aspiring to lead the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is heard saying.

“Please I am telling you the gospel truth so that you don’t make any mistakes. What we can do to change this country and the way the government is suffering from this economy if we don’t change the same face that has been giving us economic theories…

“Telling us when your fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you, when you were making that statement, the exchange rate was four cedis, twenty pesewas.

“As of Friday, it was 15 cedis to the dollar, what message are you going to give to Ghanaians again?” he asked again.

GhanaWeb cannot independently verify the exact date and location of the recording but it appears that Agyapong was addressing the party faithful as part of his presidential flagbearership tour of the country.

Agyapong, who is a businessman with investments in different areas, disclosed that he had lost huge sums of monies due to the recent depreciation of the cedi, pegging his losses at US$12 million and counting.

One of the aspiring vice president Bawumia’s most known jibes at the then John Mahama government was ‘if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you,’ when he criticized the then government for mismanaging the economy.

Agyapong is one of the leading figures gunning to replace president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as leader of the NPP going into the 2024 General Elections.

Others rumoured to be interested in becoming flagbearers include Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen. The primaries are slated for next year.





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