Akufo-Addo Blew Ghc33billion COVID-19 Windfall On 2020 Elections

Former President John Dramani Mahama has reiterated that the poor state of Ghana’s economy is largely the making of Mr. Akufo-Addo and his government, claiming that a COVID-19 windfall of some Ghc33billion that accrued to Ghana was splurged on Akufo-Addo’s violent 2020 election campaign.

“…The pandemic windfall of over GH¢33 billion which could have cushioned the economy remains unaudited and is believed to have been used largely in the quest to win the 2020 elections at all cost,” Ex-President Mahama revealed.

Mr. Mahama was speaking at the 24th African Business Conference organised by the Harvard Business School, the former President said

“In my country Ghana, our economy has emerged in extremely poor shape from the Covid experience. The ballooning deficit, double-digit inflation, the nose-diving currency, and increasing debt distress, are some of the symptoms of a very ill economy. Ghana’s fate was easy to predict with the cavalier handling of the economy by the current administration,” he stated.

Mr. Mahama has in the past chided the Akufo-Addo government for blaming all of its problems on COVID-19 saying the government has conveniently made the pandemic its whipping boy.

Since then, the World Bank’s Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Mr. Pierre Laporte, has told the government to stop blaming COVID-19 for all of its problems and admit that even before COVID, the economy was on a downturn.

Akufo-Addo’s other favorite blame target is the Russia/Ukraine war, but the Russian Embassy in Ghana has rejected the blame saying the government must be honest and admit that the economy was already in a mess before the invasion.

Former President Mahama acknowledged that COVID-19 has had a toll on economies in Africa but pointed out that some have managed to navigate the crisis successfully, while others, like Ghana, have emerged poorer because in the case of Ghana the government mishandled the economy.

Data from the Economic Commission of Africa, ECA shows that Covid-19 created the continent’s worst recession in 50 years with real GDP shrinking by an average of 3% in 2020. Before the pandemic, poverty reduction was already a major challenge.

The pandemic is estimated to have dragged about 55 million more people into poverty in Africa and exposed another 46 million more to the risk of hunger, and malnourishment. Indeed 70% of hunger in Africa, which had already been on the rise since 2014 is directly attributable to this pandemic.