Former Deputy Minister for Communications, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, has said Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has stopped discussions about the economy after playing part in Ghana's economic hardship.
According to him, instead of the Vice President staying within his field of economics, he has taken up an interest in digitalisation because there was presently nothing good to say about Ghana's economy.
the first time in Ghana's history, the country has been logged out of the international bond market over unprecedented debt levels.
“We don’t have access to the international bond market. To put it mildly and say it simply: when we go out there to borrow, investors will not touch our bonds. In fact, in October, this government went to the international bond market to raise what they call sovereign and agreeing bonds but they were not touched with a long pole and the investors' quotas had high coupon rates that there was no way we could have settled it,” he said.
Felix Ofosu Kwakye indicated that the reason why the government doesn’t have access to the international bond market is that the international investor community does not have confidence in the Ghanaian economy.
"They have looked at our numbers and they have seen that if they lend us money, we are not in a position to pay and we will default so they don’t want to have anything to do with us,” he said.
The former Deputy Minister of Communication said the current situation was going to persist till June 2022 and if there is no improvement in the country’s economy, investors will sell their bonds in a manner that will crush the Ghanaian currency.
He also said if the investors pull out, the country’s economy will fall into a deep crisis.
“Our deficits at the end of last year was 15.6 per cent and despite the optimistic talk by managers of the economy that they will be able to bring it down and we expect nothing less than 13 per cent which is extremely high anyway. And how has this deficit arisen? It is as a result of reckless election related expenditure that Dr Bawumia agreed to in order that they win the election,” Felix Ofosu Kwakye said on Good Morning Ghana on Thursday, October 4, 2021.
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He stated that an excessive budget deficit has a huge negative impact on the country’s economy.
“15.6 per cent is perhaps the biggest budget deficit in the entire history of Ghana. So, having supervised such a disastrous economic outcome, you don’t expect him [Dr Bawumia] to run away, flee, show a clean pair of heels and drop discussions on the economy and Dr Bawumia must answer for why he has so mismanaged the economy that for the first time investors don’t want anything to do with us,” he said.
He described the current economic situation as an indictment of the Vice President’s economic management and said this is the worst economic situation the country has found itself in for the past thirty years.