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Politics of Friday, 17 February 2023

Source: classfmonline.com

COVID was an economic blessing but the money ended up in private pockets – Otokunor

Former Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Peter Boamah Otokunor Former Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Peter Boamah Otokunor

The immediate past Deputy General Secretary of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Peter Boamah Otokunor, has reminded Ghanaians that the Covid-19 pandemic was one of the biggest economic blessings that ever happened to the country.

According to him, in history, Ghana has had two economic blessings namely the Covid-19 pandemic and the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative.

He said HIPC scrapped the country’s debt from the late Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s regime to former president John Agyekum Kufour’s time.

''All our debts as a country were forgiven us and we became a country without debt as a result of HIPC," he averred adding, the second economic blessing was the Covid -19 pandemic.

The pandemic, according to him, was to bring sorrow to the country but brought the country joy and saw a few individuals in President Nana Akufo-Addo's government squandering it.

The country by way of revenue got a whopping GHS 10 million, he alleged.

Ghana had support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the European Union, he revealed.

He made this disclosure in an interview on 'The Citizens Show' hosted by Kwabena Bobie Ansah on Accra 100.5 FM on Wednesday, February 15, 2023.

He noted that instead of the government using the money received from Covid-19 to cushion the suffering of the vast majority of Ghanaians, elements in this government ended up pocketing the money.

He, therefore, charged Ghanaians not to be charitable to the government.

“There is no need for sympathy for this government for the mess the country has seen under its watch, the mess is the doing of the government”, he said.

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