Former President John Mahama does not believe in a turnaround of the Ghanaian economy due to what he described as mismanagement by the government.
Having lost hope after observing the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in office for more than one term, he has concluded that “the economy is in a state of despair”.
Touring the country to thank electorates for the 2020 elections, Mr Mahama said he has been dawned with the hopelessness of the country.
In an interview, he said, “People are sad, people have regretted because this is not what the government promised them”.
“Before the elections, they gave a lot of free things such as free water, free light, free this and that which they spent GH¢11.9 billion of the COVID funds from March to December and a lot went into convincing people,” he argued.
He maintained that the funds were not utilised wisely leaving the economy in a bad shape.
“Very soon the finance minister will be presenting the budget and you’ll realize the economy is in tatters. They said the economy was resilient and the vice-president said if there was any external shock, for six months, Ghana will not need any external intervention. But within two weeks of COVID, we went to the IMF for money. What happened to that resilient economy?” he quizzed.
In his view, everything the government promised and said were “lies”.
“The economy had no buffers and, so, within two weeks of a COVID situation, [there was a] lockdown; we were begging the IMF for money…, so, it shows there’s a certain culture of lying about things and all that to deceive Ghanaians and we can see that it has all unravelled and the truth is here for all to see,” he told Radio XYZ.
The Ministry of Finance explained in a release that as at end-December 2020, Ghana incurred a revenue shortfall of GH¢11,942.7 million and an expenditure increase of GH¢14,074.2 million in relation to their respective targets in the 2020 Budget passed in Parliament in November 2019.
These monies were sourced from the IMF (GH¢5,853 million), AfDB (GH¢405.7 million), EU (GH¢504 million), and BOG Covid-19 Bonds (GH¢10,000 million), among others. Appendix 2A of the 2021 Budget Statement indicated that total financing for 2020 was GH¢44,897.9 million.
The ministry listed the expenditure as follows:
- Procurement, distribution and administration of vaccines ‒ the first batch of 600,000 doses from the COVAX Facility and an expected 17,600,000 vaccine doses in June.
- Establishment of fourteen (14) medical waste treatment facilities across the country for safe disposal of medical waste in collaboration with the private sector;
- Thirty-three (33) major health projects approved for implementation at a cost of €890 million;
- To date, 14,600,000 pieces of personal protective equipment produced domestically and distributed to health workers, students, teaching and non-teaching staff of tertiary and secondary educational institutions;
- Fumigation and disinfection of public places including, airports, markets, schools, hospitals, offices etc.;
- Agenda 111 ‒ the construction of 100-bed District Hospitals in 101 Districts with no hospitals, seven (7) Regional Hospitals for the new Regions, including one for the Western Region, the construction of two (2) new psychiatric hospitals for the Middle and Northern Belts, respectively, and the rehabilitation of Effia-Nkwanta Hospital in the Western Region; and
- The need to recruit more health care professionals, in addition to the 100,000 recruited in the first term of the President.