<\/p>\n
Former President John Mahama\u2019s aide, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, expects the economy to take another hit if the government does not heed the National Democratic Congress\u2019 calls for a national dialogue.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Eyewitness News<\/strong>, Mr. Ofosu said the NDC\u2019s previous warnings had been proven right after Ghana eventually turned to the IMF for support.<\/p>\n \u201cThey arrogantly rebuffed our call. In the end, they went to the IMF almost two years late, by which time the economy had been so badly damaged that we are not going to get an IMF programme as quickly as we should.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf they had listened and gone to the IMF right after the elections in 2020, we would not be in this mess,\u201d Mr. Ofosu added.<\/p>\n He was speaking after Mr. Mahama had called for an immediate national dialogue<\/strong> to tackle Ghana\u2019s worsening fiscal situation.<\/p>\n This was reinforced by Standard and Poor\u2019s (S&P) downgrade of Ghana\u2019s foreign and local credit ratings from B-B\u2019 to CCC+C with a negative economic outlook.<\/p>\n Ahead of Ghana turning to the IMF for support, Fitch had downgraded Ghana\u2019s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to \u2018B-\u2018 from \u2018B\u2019 and the outlook was negative.<\/p>\n Moody\u2019s Investors Service (Moody\u2019s) downgraded Ghana\u2019s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from B3 and changed the outlook to stable from negative.<\/p>\n This notwithstanding, Mr. Ofosu said there was still time to salvage the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is clear that our advice that a national economic dialogue be convened is in the right direction, and the earlier the government listens\u2026 the better for all of us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n