Akufo-Addo's 'Ghana Beyond Aid' to blame for IMF move - Amoako Baah

A former Political Science lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Technology (KNUST), Dr Richard Amoako Baah has blamed the president for his overly ambitious ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ programme for the country’s economic woes.

“How can you berate the one who feeds you? whereas your development partners are giving you grants and aids for your economy to survive, you turn around to tell them that you are seeking a Ghana Beyond Aid,” he said.

He noted that the Ghana Beyond Aid slogan was part of the reason many of the donor partners refused to assist the country after the government had borrowed to the high heavens.

Speaking on the Citizens Show hosted by Nana Bobie Ansah on Accra 100.5 FM on Wednesday, July 7, 2022, Dr Amoako Baah recalled he once told the president that his quest to achieve Ghana Beyond Aid was a laudable idea but has some repercussions for the current economy.

“If we had been measured in pushing the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda we will not get to the stage we are at today. I can assure you that if it had not been the Ghana Beyond Aid, the government of the Netherlands could have come to the aid of the failing Ghana National School Feeding programme,” he stated.

“They would have supported it because they started it”, he argued adding that “They left us because we were pushing Ghana Beyond Aid agenda. Countries like the Netherlands were on the fringes looking at us to achieve the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.”

He bemoaned that as late as last month the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori0-Atta was on air saying Ghana was a proud nation that will not go to the IMF for a bailout.

“How can you talk this way as a Minister? How can you be proud when you have to fall on others to survive”? he asked