The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has slammed the opposition NDC Minority in Parliament, describing them as persons engaged in churning out baseless rumours to cause fear and panic among the citizenry.

The NDC Minority, skeptical about the government’s ability to avoid a downturn, predicted: “severe hardship” similar to the 1983 experience where Ghana experienced acute drought and fires causing hunger across the country.

The group at a pre-budget economic assessment forum said the economy shows clear signs of a slowdown amidst a debt to GDP ratio hitting over 76 percent.

President Akufo-Addo had earlier said the 2018 budget statement and fiscal policy will focus largely on job creation, adding that it will give meaning to his government’s industrialization agenda which primarily focuses on the creation of jobs.

But the Minority Spokesperson on Finance and Economics, Ato Forson indicated that, the government’s boast of a massive boost in jobs will be a mirage on the heels of the tight monetary policy by the Central Bank.

“How can you create jobs under severe austerity under fiscal consolidation? The budget deficit in IMF article 4 is projected to be 3.8, so ladies and gentlemen, next year, let us be assured that there will be severe austerity equivalent to 1983. How can you create jobs when you have mandated the central bank to pursue tight monetary policy? How can you create jobs when the real sector, the non-oil GDP, is projected to grow in 2018 almost at the same level as 2016?”

“We believe that unfortunately, government economic policy for 2018 will bring about severe hardship and Ghanaians must be well informed,” he added.

But commenting on the matter on Peace FM Wednesday, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako stated that he expected a wholly intelligent economic analysis from the Minority and not the trumpeting of rumours.

“Minority in Parliament, for those of them who have been in power before I expect a certain level of knowledge of knowledge, information and experience from them especially when they are dealing with matters of public interest. But you sit down and prophesy doom, how anybody can say that with this current economy in a year’s time we’ll go back the difficult period of 1983 which was characterized by drought and fire, it’s difficult to understand. This is an alarmist, this conclusion has no foundation, just creating fear and panic.

“The Minority are prophets of doom and peddlers of rumours. They spent their time peddling street corner rumours. What they did does not reflect their caliber because they’re educated people, knowledgeable and supposed to be intelligent and yet they sit down there peddling rumours instead of speculation.

They’ve been out of power for just 10 months, yet they just can’t relax, it’s difficult to understand them.”