Akufo-Addo Gov’t Has Made COVID-19 Whipping Boy For His Failure

…Mahama Jabs

Former President John Mahama has called out the Akufo-Addo government over its penchant to conveniently blame its abysmal performance in office on the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Monday, Mr. Mahama said his successor has turned the pandemic into a, “whipping boy,” for its failures.

“Covid-19 has become the convenient whipping boy and has been cited as the reason for the crisis we face now and the attendant economic hardships. Yes, Covid-19 affected the economy, and no one can dispute that. However, it is not the main reason we are in the current hole we find ourselves,” he stated.

The former President was speaking at NDC’s Professionals Forum lecture series on Monday on the topic “The State of Ghana’s Economy-The Scorecard.”

The lecture had had former Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper, as the main Speaker.

Terkper, on his part, said the Akufo-Addo government has messed up a stable economy that the NDC Administration had left it.

He argued, the economy that the NDC had left had multiple streams of income but has been messed up by the current government which is overtaxing the people.

Former President Mahama pointed out that the Akufo-Addo government has had the most revenue from oil but that they have mismanaged the money.

“This has been the luckiest government under the Fourth Republic. They have benefitted from 60% of all the oil revenue accruing to Ghana since we began producing oil; they have had more than twice the total tax revenue available to us…They had access to over $200 million from the Stabilization Fund we set up and got Central Bank Financing of ¢10 billion,” he said.

“All of this notwithstanding, they have the least to show in terms of tangible gains or capital investments. This government must accept that it is their mismanagement of the economy that has plunged us into the current crisis, not necessarily Covid-19,” Mr. Mahama said at the University of Ghana on Monday.

He pointed out that Ghana is not the only country that has been impacted by COVID-19; other African countries have been facing the same monster but are fighting the virus without claiming it is the source of all their problems.

The former President expressed disappointment that even though its failures, the Akufo-Addo government has turned out sound advice to initiate dispassionate national dialogue for solutions to the country’s problems; a suggestion both himself and other well-meaning Ghanaians have made.

“The problems of our country and the solutions to them cannot be reduced to a handful of fancy slogans,” he said.