<\/p>\n
Former President John Mahama<\/strong><\/p>\n THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) has once again dismissed ex-President John Dramani Mahama\u2019s politicised claims that Ghana\u2019s current economic challenges are as a result of \u201cthe bad policies\u201d of the Akufo-Addo-led government.<\/p>\n Mr. Mahama,\u00a0who is seeking to lead the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has been ranting on the country\u2019s economy\u00a0under the spell of the mantra that \u201cthe government is the problem,\u201d leaving no room for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to respond.<\/p>\n Despite telling the 24th African Business Conference in the USA organised by the Harvard Business School in April this year that data from the Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) indicated that the COVID-19 had created the \u201ccontinent\u2019s worst recession in 50 years,\u201d the ex-President says the Akufo-Addo administration is the problem the economy is in dire need.<\/p>\n He even took issues with the IMF when the Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, stated that Ghana\u2019s economy was hurt by \u201cexogenous shocks\u201d of COVID-19 pandemic and Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the norm in international diplomacy of being guarded in what one says is appreciated, comments by high-ranking officials must be grounded on facts that take into consideration local realities and opinions,\u201d he criticised the IMF boss.<\/p>\n IMF Response<\/strong><\/p>\n But the politically opportunistic claim, which is intended to put government in bad light, was watered down when the IMF again cleared the government of the politicised accusations by Mr. Mahama.<\/p>\n The Fund\u2019s Director of Communications, Gerry Rice, said former President Mahama\u2019s blame seems wrongheaded, insisting that his boss was right when she indicated that the current Ghanaian economy is as a result of developments in Ukraine and COVID-19 shocks.<\/p>\n Mr. Rice told journalists during a virtual press conference on Monday that, \u201cI would say, as just to repeat, the war in Ukraine has triggered a global economic shock that\u2019s hitting Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor many of these countries, their room for fiscal maneuver, if I could put it that way, is already extremely limited because they\u2019ve used a lot of fiscal power already, firepower already in the pandemic,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n The IMF Communications Director added that the shock coming from the war in Ukraine, compounded other pressing policy challenges, intimating, \u201cAnd we\u2019re very cognizant of that. And that\u2019s why we are, as I described at the beginning, stepping up to help countries where we can, and that includes Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n Kristalina\u2019s Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n The IMF boss had earlier stated that the economic challenges of Ghana were due to \u201cexogenous shocks\u201d of COVID-19 pandemic and Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst the pandemic, then Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, and that we need to realise is not because of bad policies in the country, but because of\u00a0this combination of shocks, and, therefore, we have to support Ghana,\u201d she stated on the sidelines of the Fund\u2019s engagements with the Ghanaian delegation.<\/p>\n BY Ernest Kofi Adu<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former President John Mahama THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) has once again dismissed ex-President John Dramani Mahama\u2019s politicised claims that Ghana\u2019s current economic challenges are as a result of \u201cthe bad policies\u201d of the Akufo-Addo-led government. Mr. Mahama,\u00a0who is seeking to lead the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has been ranting on the country\u2019s economy\u00a0under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1209017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}