Coronavirus has become NPP’s whipping boy – John Mahama

• Mr Mahama has said that Ghana's crisis should be blamed on the NPP

• He has asked govt to stop blaming their 'failure' on COVID-19

• Mr Mahama again termed the govt as the luckiest under the Fourth Republic

The 2020 presidential candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has asked the Nana Addo-led government to desist from blaming their mismanagement of the country on the impact of Coronavirus.

The former president has reiterated that the ruling government has failed to deliver their promises to the Ghanaians due to their corrupt practices.

Speaking at the NDC's Professionals Forum at the University of Ghana on Monday, September 6, 2021, Mr Mahama noted that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the 2020 polls spent huge sums of money to win the elections.

This he said has plunged Ghana into crisis and not necessarily the negative impact of Coronavirus which has affected economies in the world.

"COVID-19 has become the convenient whipping boy and has been cited as the reason for the crisis we face now and the attendant economic hardships. Yes, COVID-19 affected the economy, and no one can dispute that. It is however not the main reason why we are in the current hole we find ourselves. COVID-19 only became a pretext for reckless election-related spending, which produced the largest-ever budget deficit in the recent economic history of Ghana last year.

"Our debt has ballooned to unsustainable levels- topping 80% of GDP- exposing us to very high risk of debt default. Almost all of our tax revenue is used to service our debt and the effect has been the introduction of several new taxes. This has led to rampant increments in the prices of goods and services. This is primarily responsible for the hardships Ghanaians are going through now," said the former president.

Mr Mahama in his address added that Nana Akufo-Addo's government is the “luckiest under the Fourth Republic". But according to him, they do not have enough to show for when it comes to developmental projects despite all the available resources.

"This has been the luckiest government under the fourth republic. They have benefitted from 60% of all the oil revenue accruing to Ghana since we began producing oil, they have had more than twice the total tax revenue available to us and have enjoyed unprecedented support from our development partners."

He furthered: "This government must accept that it is their mismanagement of the economy, their thirst for consumption expenditure and the desire to spend beyond our means in order to win elections that have plunged us into the current crisis, not necessarily COVID-19."