Dr. Mahamoud Bawumia, Vice President of Ghana delivered a lecture on the state of the Ghanaian economy at the Pentecost Conference centre, Kasoa during the TESCON national delegates conference on 7th April after months of silence amidst public calls on him to speak to the economic downturns in the country.
During the lecture, Dr. Bawumia who is a member of government’s economic management team and who has been touted as the “economic wizard” admitted that the economy was indeed facing some challenges but explained that, many factors, both internal and external accounted for the decline in the economy.
He said the The financial markets’ assessments of the 2022 budget, unfortunately, concluded that government’s projected 40% increase in revenue as contained in the 2022 budget statement was not likely to materialize and therefore, the deficit will increase. He added that negative market sentiments, sovereign credit rating downgrade by Fitch and Moody’s, the delay in the approval of the budget, the delay in tax reforms and the battle in Parliament over the 2022 budget and the passage of the budget all acconted for the poor economic potentententials.
Dr. Michael Ayamga Adongo, an applied economics lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Tamale contended that the vice President only rushed to speak on the economy after many months of silence because of the injection of USS$2bn into the economy by the Bank of Ghana to temporally stabilize the cedi.
Dr. Ayamga in an interview on the Community Watch Show on Word Fm in Zuarungu with Mr. Simon Agana Blessing, said the Vice President wanted to ride on the injection of the $2bn into the economy to temporally stabilise the cedi by the Bank of Ghana to claim credit .
“The Vice President wanted to ride on the injection of the $2bn by the Bank of Ghana, into the economy to temporally stabilise the cedi to claim credit.”
The economics lecture said the Vice president need not to have made that speech because “it was premature to have delivered the speech since the government had nothing new to say.”
“There was nothing fundamentally new that he was coming to say that we do not know of or that we have not heard. the whole two hours was just trying hard to compare themselves to the NDC that has been out of power for 6 years and not judging themselves on their own track record”
Dr. Michael said he wished that Dr. Bawumia had come back much much later when he had something concrete to tell Ghanaians.
“I wish that he had come back much later when he had something concrete to tell Ghanaians”
By: Simon Agana Blessing/mywordfmonline.com