Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, has said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) cannot win the 2024 elections with the Akufo Addo-led faction in the party.
According to him, the fact that it was the same group of people leading the nation to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a financial bailout after the government had collapsed the economy would make it difficult for the NPP to be able to sell itself in 2024 as a party competent enough to manage the country.
Consequently, Agyapong who has said he will contest for the 2024 presidential ticket of the NPP, warns that the party’s agenda to “break the eight” will not work.
“Going to the IMF is just like handing over power to the NDC straight away because of the noise we made. Throwing my own words back when I said the NDC went to the IMF because of the mismanagement of the economy or the government. So if NPP is going to IMF what am I going to say?” Agyapong stated.
“So ‘breaking the 8’ is going to be tough. You cannot use the faces of those who took us to the IMF to ‘break the 8’. It will not work. My message to you is simple.”
He made this known while speaking at an ongoing NPP National Constituency Officers Welfare workshop at Koforidua in the Eastern Region Friday.
The people leading the country back into the dreaded clutches of the IMF are President Akufo-Addo, his Vice, Mahamudu Bawumia and members of the government’s economic management team led by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
Others are Trade Minister, Alan Kyeremanten, Agric Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto and senior presidential advisor, Yaw Osafo Maafo.
Ken Agyapong expressed utter disgust with the decision to go to IMF
“What I tell you is the gospel truth, those who took you to IMF they cannot, these same faces, they cannot ‘break the 8’. A word to a wise person is enough. I was very sad today when I saw the publication that we are going to the IMF.”
In the past, Agyapong has said that it is only incompetent governments which run to the IMF and that the Mahama government had gone to the IMF in 2014 because it was incompetent.
Agyapong recalled his own words, saying he would be a hypocrite if he said something different today that his own party’s government is running back to the IMF.
on July 1, 2022, the Akufo-Addo government announced it was going to the IMF for a bailout after months of dragging its feet.
In the statement, President Akufo-Addo said he had authorized Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to commence formal engagements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), inviting the Fund to support an economic program put together by the Government of Ghana.
This is the second time Ghana is seeking support from the Bretton Wood institution in seven years after the country engaged them in 2015 under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama’s government.