Akufo-Addo: People Refuse To Acknowledge COVID, Russia-Ukraine War Are Causing Hardship

The President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has bemoaned a section of Ghanaians’ failure to acknowledge that the country’s downturned economy is a product of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“There are some people who refuse to acknowledge this and say that I am looking for an excuse as to what has happened to the economy. What excuse do I need”, he said in an interview on Radio North star during the first day of his two-day tour in the Northern region of Ghana.

According to the president, there is no doubt that external factors are the cause of the current state of the economy.

“When we made the budget in 2021, it was on the principle that we will be paying on the average $64 per barrel of crude and the budget was constructed around it. That calculation is fundamental to the sense of the budget. From January when the war in Europe began, crude oil prices on the open market had been more than $100.

“It had a tremendous impact on our balance of payments. Instead of paying $64, the bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance is having to find money to pay for crude which is over $100 per barrel and has been consistently up there. That has had a major negative impact on our economy and these developments- food prices, prices of fertiliser- all of these have gone through the roof”.

Akufo-Addo furthered that “it is these difficulties on our balance of payments that led us into renegotiating, re-engaging with the fund (IMF) to see whether they can help us stabilise our balance of payments.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajar Fuseini