A former national chairman of the Peoples National Convention, PNC, Bernard Mornah is convinced that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the major problem the country has. Contributing to a panel discussion on TV3 last week, he suggested that Akufo-Addo had handed the economy to a private finance house co-founded by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, that is Databank. In explaining the overarching influence that Databank officials had on the economy, he listed four persons linked with the outfit, explaining how their strategic positioning in sectors of the economy suggested a ‘capture’ of the economy. He cited Ofori Atta himself as Finance Minister, his Databank co-founder Keli Gadzekpo, a one-time board chairman of the Bank of Ghana now board chair of the Electricity Company of Ghana; Rev. Daniel Obgarmey Tetteh, the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC and Yoofi Grant of the Ghana Investment Promotions Center, GIPC – all of whom are linked to Databank. “They are meddling with the finances of this country… so if you take this sector and just give it out to Databank, President, something is wrong. If no one is telling you, you should know, you should see it. “If these men pushed us into a ditch, they are incapable of pulling us out because their legs are wobbly,” he stressed. In his view, the fact that the economy has been suffering distress and for the President to keep the Finance Minister who plunged the country into that mess, shows that he is insensitive to the plight of the citizenry. With respect to the economic downturn, he submitted: “The major problem we have in this country is President Akufo-Addo, who thinks that the mindset that took us into this problem is capable of lifting us out of the problem.” Analysts and politicians alike have been calling for government to take pragmatic steps to deal with the current economic downturn. Rising cost of living, galloping inflation and a rapidly depreciating Ghana Cedi are some of the main pointers to the economic crisis that Ghanaians are putting up with. The government is in talks with the International Monetary Fund, IMF, for a reported US$3 billion rescue facility to help stabilize the economy and reset it on the path of growth. Government has partly blamed the Russia-Ukraine war and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for the headwinds, insisting that all was being done to stem the tide. You can also watch this episode of People & Places on GhanaWeb TV: SARA