Former President John Dramani Mahama says President Nana Akufo-Addo ignored his advice to rally Ghanaians in the effort to surmount the economic challenges facing the country.
Mahama is on record to have said that in circumstances such as the current economic crisis, the support of everyone is important, stressing that government should get the people involved in a non-partisan dialogue to develop solutions.
He has also stated that for government to rally the needed support to bring the economy back on track, it had to be transparent about the underlying issues.
In a comment following Friday morning’s decision by a former Chief Justice of Ghana, Justice Sophia Akuffo to join pensioners who have been picketing at the Ministry of Finance against the inclusion of pensioners in the domestic debt exchange programme, Mr. Mahama recalled that when the country was running into an economic ditch, he made several calls for a genuine dialogue and national consensus on an economic programme.
He noted that the arrogance and intransigence of President Akufo-Addo, his incompetent Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, and the Economic Management Team were collectively responsible for the present state of the economy.
In a post on Facebook that tags the former Chief Justice’s trending story, Mahama said “we could have forged a broad non-partisan consensus on the IMF bailout and accompanying debt restructuring programme”.
He added that it is too late now for the country to come out of the economic mess government has plunged the country as a result of its incompetence and intransigence.
Justice Sophia Akuffo said in an interview after joining the picketing that it is very insensitive on the part of the NPP administration to include the elderly in the debt exchange programme.
“I find this wicked; I find it disrespectful; I find it unlawful; I find it totally wrong. Period. Because you don’t solve your problems by sacrificing your age. That’s the last thing you should do especially when we don’t have any services that are specially geared at the comfort and the relief of the aged.”
According to her, while she is not going to be affected by the government’s DDEP, she finds it wicked for the government to sacrifice the profits of retirees – people who have sacrificed for Ghana, just so that it is able to solve its own problems with mismanaging the economy.
