The former president, John Dramani Mahama, has attacked President Akufo-Addo and his Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta for the nation’s current economic difficulties.
According to the presumptive presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), when he picked signals of the economy running into a ditch, he advised the government on what to do, but it was taken with a pinch of salt.
He claimed in a Facebook post last Friday that if the government had responded to prior pleas from him and other well-meaning Ghanaians for a national dialogue, the current issues could have been avoided.
“The arrogance and intransigence of a President and incompetence of a Finance Minister and the Economic Management Team have led us here. We could have forged a broad non-partisan consensus on the IMF bailout and accompanying debt restructuring programme”, the former president posted.
He added that it is too late now for the country to come out of the economic mess that government has plunged the country into as a result of its incompetence and intransigence.
The former President made these comments in response to a report concerning Sophia Akuffo’s outburst about the government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Program. Along with irate pensioners, the former Chief Justice was seen picketing at the Finance Ministry to urge the exclusion of retirees’ investments from the program.
Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo said in an interview after joining the picketing that it was very insensitive on the part of the NPP administration to include the elderly in the debt exchange programme.
“I find this wicked; I find it disrespectful; I find it unlawful; I find it totally wrong,because you don’t solve your problems by sacrificing your age. That’s the last thing you should do, especially when we don’t have any services that are specially geared at the comfort and the relief of the aged.”
Although she won’t be affected by the government’s DDEP, she stressed that it was still wrong for the government to sacrifice pensioners’ profits, people who have made sacrifices for Ghana so that it may address its own poor economic management.
Background
Government has revised the terms of Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) for individual bondholders who wish to participate in the programme.
Individual bondholders who are under the age of 59 will now be provided with instruments having a maximum maturity of 5 years, as opposed to 15 years and a 10% coupon rate. Additionally, instruments having a maximum maturity of 5 years rather than 15 years and a coupon rate of 15% will be made available to all retirees (even those retiring in 2023) as well.
