Mahama ‘cries’ over current state of ‘Nkrumah’s Ghana’

Former President John Dramani Mahama has decried the current state of Ghana’s economy. The NDC flagbearer noted that the current government has succeeded in running the country into a ditch.

According to him, the economy has seen its worst conditions ever.

He attributed the high inflation rates, the cedi’s depreciation, and the increasing cost of living to corruption, waste, arrogance, nepotism, abuse of office, human rights violations, and economic mismanagement under the Akufo-Addo administration.

Speaking at a three-day NDC Europe Conference in Amsterdam, he said: “Ghana, our beloved country? Nkrumah’s Ghana? Inflation is at record highs, impacting the prices of essential goods and services and escalating an already severe cost of living crisis. Our currency, the Ghana Cedi, has suffered one of its steepest declines in decades. This has earned the Cedi the depressing accolade, at one point, as the worst-performing currency in the world.

“Businesses are stressed and being pushed to the brink, with quite a number left with no choice but to fold up or relocate to neighbouring countries. The Bank of Ghana has exacerbated the problem. It has blatantly breached its financial threshold, printing over 40 billion Ghana cedis to finance the government’s budget deficit,” he said.

John Mahama noted that the default on Ghana’s debt that led to downgrades has led to the expropriation of over GH¢80 billion worth of bonds domestically.

According to him, this has affected the livelihoods of so many Ghanaians.

“In the last two years, we have suffered downgrade after downgrade to junk status by all the international credit rating agencies, and we have finally defaulted on our domestic and external debt repayment. The unilateral, insensitive debt restructuring programme has seen over GHS 80 billion lent by millions of Ghanaians to the government by purchasing bonds expropriated.

“This has caused severe dislocation in the livelihoods of many pensioners and middle-class Ghanaian families. It has led to the depressing sight of elderly pensioners picketing at the Ministry of Finance to demand their money. Local businesses, especially contractors and other government service providers, are owed tens of billions of Ghana cedis, whose value continues to dwindle following the government’s inability or unwillingness to pay,” he bemoaned.

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