Former president of the Republic of Ghana, John Drama Mahama, has said that the Akufo-Addo led government is on the verge of leading Ghana to declare bankruptcy if the current state of the economy is still the same.
According to him in a speech at the ‘Ghana at a Crossroads’ programme organized by the NDC, the president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his Vice, Mahamudu Bawumia have failed after they have promised to reduced the borrowing in the country. He said, they are rather borrowing more than any previous government.
He however added that, Ghana is on this path because of the mismanagement of this current government despite the resources it has.
“At the last reckoning, over GH¢ 500 billion had been available to them (government) through taxes, grants, borrowing and other sources of revenue. No government in our recent history has been that fortunate”, he said.
“Despite this fortune, today, the Ghanaian economy ranks among the worst managed in the world. It is characterized by unsustainable public debt due to an unprecedented fiscal deficit, comparatively high and still rising inflation, a rapid depreciating currency, spiraling cost of doing business, ever rising cost of living, high levels of corruption, abuse of civil and human liberties, and a general loss of investor confidence. Simply put, our country is on the verge of bankruptcy”
“In spite of the firm promise to reduce borrowing, this government has increased our public debt to almost GH¢ 380 billion as of the end of the first quarter of 2022. This is more than three times the debt of all governments since the days of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah up to January 2017”, he added.
He further accused that due to the huge sum of money the NPP government borrowed in the past five years, Ghana’s debt has therefore risen up by more than 500 percent in 2016, which means from GH¢10 billion to about GH¢50 billion currently.
Meanwhile, the ‘Ghana at a Crossroads’ programme which was organized by the NDC was to give Ghanaians a clear picture of the current state of the country.