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Former president, John Dramani Mahama
African countries generally suffered adverse effect of COVID-19 pandemic
Ghana mismanaged the pandemic, says John Dramani Mahama
Mahama delivers lecture at Harvard University
Former President John Dramani Mahama has conceded that the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war ha adversely affected global economies, especially that of African countries.
He, however, believes that the handling of the twin crisis by different governments on the continent showed how bad the impact of the two incidents reflected on their economies.
He pointed out that Ghana was poorly prepared before both occurrences hence the adverse effect that the economy is currently facing.
“In my country, Ghana, our economy has emerged in an extremely poor shape from the COVID experience. A ballooning deficit, double-digit inflation, a nosediving currency, and increasing debt distress, are some of the symptoms of a very ill economy,” Mahama said during a recent public lecture.
“Ghana’s case was easy to predict. With the cavalier handling of the economy by the current administration, unbridled borrowing from the capital markets, created misstatements and other critical fiscal Budget figures were certain to come to a head eventually,” he declared.
“Ghana went into the pandemic without adequate buffers and has emerged with a terribly battered economy,” he added while speaking at the 24th Africa Business Conference, organised last month by Harvard Business School.
He continued: “To make matters worse, a pandemic windfall in excess of GHC33 billion, which could have cushioned the economy, remains unaudited and is believed to have been used largely in the quest to win Election 2020 at all costs,” the 2020 flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress alleged.
Government blames COVID, Russia-Ukraine war for economic downturn
Government has since 2020 blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for most of the economic hardship being experienced.
It has more recently cited the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis as another factor that has impacted the economy with the knock-on effect being felt by citizens.
President Akufo-Addo referred to the impact of the crisis in his SoNA address: “Mr. Speaker, 30 per cent of our wheat flour and fertiliser imports come from Russia. Sixty per cent of iron rods and other metal sheets are imported from Ukraine, and almost 20 per cent of Ghana’s manganese is shipped to Ukraine.”
He added that “the bombs might be dropping on cities half a world away but they are hitting our pockets here in Ghana.”
View his Timepath below:
