The People’s Forum, a pressure group associated with the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), has criticized Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the 2012 Vice Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), for challenging figures from the BoG and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
The People’s Forum described Dr. Bawumia’s analysis as “distorted and deliberate misinformation.
The group pledged to summon Dr. Bawumia to a roundtable meeting with officials of the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) for him to substantiate claims that the figures had been cooked by BoG and GSS.
At a press conference on Tuesday in Accra, the Convenor of the People’s Forum, Clement Amole said, “We are by this press conference inviting Dr. Bawumia to a roundtable discussion with the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Statistical Service, who he has accused of ‘cooking’ figures or misrepresenting the real economic situation we are in to help the good people of Ghana make their own judgment as to who is speaking the truth.”
The forum also lambasted other critics of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, saying the critics had misrepresented the true picture of the country’s economy.
Dr. Bawumia recently exposed what he considers to be a “deliberate attempt by officials to massage the true state of inflation and depreciation of the Ghanaian cedi.”
According to the economist, while the local currency is trading at an average of GH¢3.8 to the dollar among banks, official figures had deceptively pegged the exchange rate at GH¢3.03.
But the forum argued that Dr. Bawumia figures are inaccurate, saying he was not working in the general interest of Ghanaians.
Mr. Amole indicated that such actions by the former BoG Deputy Governor and other critics, including the General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensah Otabil have the potential to run down state institutions and create “unnecessary panic within the international community about investing in the country.”
“In recent weeks, political proxies calling themselves economic analysts, social commentators and clergymen have taken advantage of the constitutional provisions for freedom of expression to propagate distorted and deliberate misinformation in an attempt to make the economy appear to be “sinking,” he said.
He attributed the economic challenges confronting the country to external factors like price fluctuation of commodities like cocoa and gold which are major revenue exchange earners.