Adongo Explains Why Bawumia Is Wrong to Blame Covid-19 And Ukraine-Russia War For Ghana's Economic Challenges

• NDC's Isaac Adongo has said it is deceptive for Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to blame the Covid and war in Ukraine for Ghana's economic challenges
• He said the two events merely took advantage of the already bad economic conditions existing in the country
• He said Dr Bawumia, as head of the government's Economic Management Team, introduced naïve economic principles that has caused the current economic crisis

MP for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo, has said he is surprised that Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has joined the fray to wrongly blame Covid-19 and the Ukraine-Russia war for Ghana's economic challenges.

According to him, the Covid pandemic and the less-than-one-month Ukraine-Russia war only took advantage of pre-existing negative conditions in the economy.

He told a packed room of NDC youth at a forum on Monday, April 11, 2022, that a recent lecture by Dr Bawumia on Ghana's economic challenges was full of deceit and cooked economic figures.

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"The issue about the economy and where we are today is a major tragedy of significant proportions…you [Bawumia] tell us there is a crisis, but you do an analysis that tells us there is no crisis," he reacted to the vice president's recent presentation.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said last week that Ghana's current economic challenges are temporary, explaining that the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have dealt significant blows.

Earlier, President Nana Akufo-Addo also made a similar remark about the pandemic and the war when he delivered the State of The Nation Address on March 30.

But on Monday, Mr Adongo, a finance and accounting expert, said the attempt by the government to explain the country's challenges with the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24 is deceptive.

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"In 2017, I warned the NPP government that one could be forgiven for delivering a series of propaganda lectures and allow those lectures to metamorphose into your manifesto promise.

"But if you allow those propaganda lectures, no matter how cunningly eloquent and confident they were delivered, to become government policies, implementation will expose you," he added.

He said Dr Bawumia's "naïve experimental economics" had plunged Ghana's economy into economic stagnation.

"The NPP, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and others are not competing to get to the very last bottom of destruction. The plan to move the economy from taxation to production died a still death," Isaac Adongo said.

Spikes in the price of fuel, the depreciation of the cedi against major trading currencies, inadequate revenue mobilisation, and inflation has saddled Ghanaians with economic challenges.

Although government has rolled out measures to mitigate the economic challenges, some experts say Ghana's economic situation looks bleak.

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Bawumia Speaks On The Economy: Ghana's Progress Temporarily Stalled By Covid And Russia-Ukraine War

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said Ghana's current economic challenges are temporary, explaining that the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have dealt significant blows.

After months of silence on the economy, on Thursday, April 7, 2022, the vice president said Ghana was not the only country reeling under the ravages of the Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war.

He indicated, for instance, that the debt-to-GDP ratio rose astronomically globally.

Source: YEN.com.gh