'I take responsibility for hardships but one can’t gloss over external factors' – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated that he should be blamed for the current economic difficulties that Ghanaians are going through. According to him, even though as the President the buck stops with him, the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the Russia-Ukraine war cannot be left out of the contributory factors to the economic headwinds. During an interview with Kumasi-based OTEC FM as part of his four-day tour of the Ashanti Region, the President admitted there are hardships and explained that the country’s micro-economy continues to be challenged. “I am the leader and I take responsibility,” President Akufo-Addo said. Akufo-Addo was, however, optimistic that the economy will recover before he finishes his term “I hope the IMF support is concluded in the middle of November so we can feed it into our budget,” adding, “my hope is to take Ghana out of IMF before I finish my term.” Ghana currently has a delegation in the United States led by Ken Ofori-Atta to conclude the IMF negotiations. The Finance Minister led the Ghanaian delegation to the G7 meeting with African Finance Ministers but stated that will be staying after the meeting to conclude negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, IMF, before coming back to Ghana. “We still are working through and as you know, we are staying beyond the Fund, the World Bank meetings through, maybe the 20th, so we will continue with the Mission and the work. We pray that that may give us enough time to be able to come to some fair decisions on the outlook. “I can tell you that the Fund staff is very motivated, which is good and we are 24/7, so the combination of their own enthusiasm and our clarity on the work that has been done to fulfil the President’s promise. If you look at the turnout of discussions for this annual meeting clearly, the world is recognizing that something different has to be done,” Ken Ofori-Atta said as quoted by Accra-based 3news. PEN/SARA