News:
March 13, 2025
Former Minister for Finance has taken a swipe at President John Dramani Mahama and Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson for lamenting and describing the Ghanaian economy as ‘economy in crises.
He noted that not only had the President stated it during the Message of the State of the Nation Address but same was repeated by the Finance Minister, Dr. Ato Forson at the presentation of this year’s budget statement.
He affirmed, however, that the budget presented on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 by Dr. Ato Forson showed that the economy is strong and not in crises as the new government would want Ghanaians to believe.
Addressing the media on the budget, the former Finance Minister noted that the current Finance Minister was hesitant in announcing the growth figures, same with debt to Gross Domestic Product level.
“The reality is that as at the end of last year 2024 real GDP growth rate was 5.7 percent and this was released by the Ghana Statistical Service confirmed by the Minister of Finance on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, when he presented the budget”.
Again, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took over from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) with a growth of 3.4 percent in 2016 against 5.7 percent, and if you come to the projected growth for 2025 that is disturbing and disappointing.
Dr. Amin Adam further pointed out that, a resting economy as we are being told is projecting to grow by 4 percent, “how can we say this reset economy would be better than an economy which President Mahama says it was criminally mismanaged, and which grew at 5.7 percent by the immediate past NPP government”.
In terms of Gross International Reserves, again, by the end of 2024 we left 8.9 billion dollars equivalent to four months of import cover while in 2016 they handed over to us 3.5 months of import cover, he added.
In the 2025 budget they are projecting three months of import cover which is worse than what they recorded in 2016. “Are we moving forward or backwards? If a broken economy could leave 4 months of import cover how come a reset economy is contemplating on going back to three month of import cover?”
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com