A former executive of the Tema East constituency branch of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has named former President John Mahama as the true architect of the current economic crisis in the country.
At a press conference in Tema, Mr. Stephen Ashitey Adjei, alias Moshake, explains that the current mess is just the knock-on effect of Mahama’s maladministration from 2012 to 2016. “Look, what we are facing as a country at the moment is nothing short of a debt conundrum which resulted in too much reckless borrowing – all of the reckless borrowings started with John Mahama and his Finance Minister, Seth Terkper,” Mr. Ashitey Adjei told his audience.
The dollar is now retailing for over Ghc16; inflation is out of the roof and the cost of living has left many struggling to make ends meet. This is the result of investors refusing to lend any more money to Ghana because the country’s debt is just too huge to trust it with any more funds.
Amidst the trouble, former President John Mahama has been blaming president Akufo-Addo and his government for the mess. But according to Mr. Ashitey Adjei, who is popularly called Moshake, the genesis of the problem is John Mahama himself. He accuses Mr. Mahama of superintending over poor domestic revenue mobilization that has spiraled down the line.
“When Professor Mills was President and Dr. Kwabena Duffuor was his finance minister, domestic revenue mobilization registered a growth of over 32%. Between 2013 and 2016 when Mahama was president, domestic revenue mobilization dropped by 19%, for the first time ever in the history of the country.
This sharply degraded Ghana’s domestic revenue mobilization percentage from the 21% that was registered under the previous Kufuor government between 2005 and 2007,” Moshake said.
According to him, this led to, “the Mahama government starting the culture of heavy Eurobond borrowings,” starting from 2013 when the Mahama government borrowed US$ 1 billion. “In 2014, Mahama and Seth Terkper again borrowed US$ 1 billion, in 2015, another US$ 1 billion, and then in 2016, US$750million, bringing the total amount borrowed to US$3.75billion under the Mahama administration.”
Moshake points out, “we resorted to Eurobond borrowing because of poor management of the economy which had led to poor domestic revenue mobilization. But domestic revenue mobilization is at the core of public finance management in any economy, so any deterioration in domestic revenue mobilization will force the government to borrow from the central bank or outside of the country, particularly through the Eurobond market.”
According to Moshake, it was after Mahama had introduced Eurobond borrowings that it became a pattern for the Akufo-Addo government to also follow, with the new government borrowing over US$ 11 billion.
“It was Mahama and Seth Terkper who paved the path of borrowing for Akufo-Addo and Ken Ofori-Atta to follow,” Moshake said. He points out that, “no Ghanaian leader had borrowed as much as US$3.75billion from Eurobond until Mahama set that record and so if today our economy is in a mess as a result of borrowing, John Mahama should be the last person to point accusing fingers.”
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor as Finance Minister under the late President Mills performed excellently well and that is why the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions in the international circles were full of praise for Dr. Kwabena Duffuor.
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Former President, John Dramani Mahama