It’s a ‘bloody lie’ to blame Covid and Russia-Ukraine for our economic crisis – Mahama

Former President John Mahama has accused government of deceiving Ghanaians about the cause of the current economic crisis.

He said government’s attribution of the current economic crisis to Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine crisis is a “bloody lie”.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, at a press conference in Accra last Thursday, explained that “the war in Ukraine could not have come at a worse time for the global economy.”

He underscored the devastation wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic on the country’s economy.

However, interacting with the Executives of the USA Chapter of the NDC in Boston over the weekend, the 2020 NDC Presidential Candidate said the Budget under the Akufo-Addo administration has always had ‘holes’ in it.

“I have accused the Finance Minister several times that he is doing creative accounting because there is a huge liability number that he will never add to the Budget.

“He puts them as appendixes, but when you add them to the Budget, he says I have a 4.5% deficit; when you add them to the Budget, you find out that he is close to a 7.58% budget deficit.

“So there has always been a hole in the budget if they tell you that Covid and Ukraine have brought us to this situation, it is a bloody lie,” John Mahama said.

He explained further that the cost of the banking sector clean-up and the energy sector liability makes up the ‘hole’ in the Budget.

“The fundamentals were already shaking, so you can do all the propaganda you want with the fundamentals; you know Covid will expose you,” he added.

John Mahama criticised government for its decision to review some of its flagship programmes when according to him, the New Patriotic Party had made a mockery of the NDC in 2020 for making suggestions to review the Free SHS if the party had won power.

“I said that when I come into office within 90 days of my administration I will call a stakeholders meeting and bring everybody who is a stakeholder in the education sector to review the Free SHS so that we can make it more efficient, cut out the waste and all that and of course, they did politics with it…one lawyer said review means cancel. Now they say all flagship programmes are up for review and so the question is, are they cancelling those projects? Because they are using the same word that I used,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Ken Ofori-Atta on Thursday, March 24, at a press conference in Accra, revealed new expenditure measures to salvage the country’s economy.

The Minister expressed optimism that the measures will go a long way to cushion the citizenry amid the economic downturn.