Incompetent Crybaby Akufo-Addo Blames Rating Agencies For Collapsing Economy -In Erratic Rant

Crowded into a corner for collapsing the Ghanaians economy, Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo, on Friday used the platform of the African Union summit, to warn against taking the prescriptions of international rating agencies seriously after they downgraded Ghana’s creditworthiness to the lowest in the history of the country.

Addressing the 35th AU summit at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Ghanaian president lashed out at international rating agencies, accusing them of having a supposed stranglehold on economies and then calling for a pan-African war of sorts on them.

“We need to guard against the continuing consequential stranglehold of rating agencies, which has affected the cost and access to capital markets for African countries…And has during this COVID period resulted in the downgrading of many Africa countries exacerbating, even more, their funding challenges.”

However, the same Akufo Addo administration in January 2020 had been full of praises for the internationally renowned rating agencies such as Fitch, Standards and Poor’s and Moody’s when they were diagnosing the Ghanaian economy under the previous administration.

In 2020, shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19, Moody’s had slightly upgraded Ghana’s credit rating from “Stable” to “Positive”. The Akufo Addo administration made a whole fanfare about the grading as the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah communicated the administration’s vote of confidence in the rating agency.

“The change in the outlook is a very important development especially in the context of the country’s rating history over the years…The Administration through its Economic Management Team will continue to ensure that the gains made are not compromised even in this year’s election and ensure that the key pillars have contributed to the improved outlook, Oppong Nkrumah told journalists that year.

The sudden U-turn expressed by President Akufo Addo has, therefore, been regarded by critics as inconsistent and an attempt of the President to sugarcoat his government’s extreme incompetence.

Some critics think the President is exhibiting erratic behaviors indicating that he has “lost it”.

Akufo Addo resorted to whining because of the latest unprecedented downgrade of Ghana’s credit status from B3 to Caa1 by Moody’s.

The new rating is the worst ever for Ghana as corruption and mismanagement of the Ghanaians economy had resulted in a crippling public debt of over GHC 300 billion or over 80% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Moody’s downgrade follows an earlier downgrade by Fitch which downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B-‘ from ‘B’. The Outlook is Negative.

Long before the downgrade, investors had been abandoning the country over its out-of-control debt and incompetent economic management in which the government borrows to pay salaries, among other recurrent budgets.

Akufo-Addo’s whine has therefore been received as a bad joke to many because rating agencies have been an integral part of the international financial market. It was based on ratings by these same rating agencies that Akufo-Addo in opposition referred to the erstwhile administration of the National Democratic Congress as incompetent.

Also, Akufo Addo’s over-flogged excuse that Ghana’s economy is in a mess because of COVID-19 has long been proven to be spurious because Ghana has received over Ghc15billion from the IMF and World Bank to fight this same COVID-19.

Also, the massive corruption and mismanagement of the economy by the administration had been ongoing long before the outbreak of COVID-19 in Ghana in March 2020.

The Akufo-Addo government, in what many perceive as being the most corrupt in the history of the country has usually shied away from accountability and has blatantly refused to account for the COVID-19 cash.

Meanwhile, in addition to the over GHC 15billion received from the World Bank and the IMF, Parliament, in 2020, also approved a request by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to lower the cap on the Ghana Stabilization Fund (GSF) from US$300 million to US$100 million and the amount transferred into the Contingency Fund to support the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP)

But since 2020, a request by the same Parliament for the government to account for monies spent so far has been ignored by the Akufo-Addo government, only for the embattled president to complain at the AU summit that rating agencies are choking his economy.

Interestingly, it is not only Ghana that has had downgrades by rating agencies in Africa – over 40% of Sub-Saharan African countries have suffered at least one downgrade, while 35% suffered the same in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, immediately after he had complained about rating agencies at the 35th AU summit, Mr. Akufo-Addo called for more financial favors. “Furthermore it is important that G-20 leaders stick to their commitments to re-allocate to Africa SDR 100 billion agreed to at the Paris Summit in May 2020.”

Interestingly, the G20 countries regard the ratings as crucially in determining their funding decision for countries.