General News of Saturday, 22 October 2022

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Sue Akufo-Addo for causing financial loss to the state, wasting talents - Gyampo

Lecturer, Prof. Ransford Gyampo Lecturer, Prof. Ransford Gyampo

A Senior lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has charged Ghanaians to sue President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for causing financial loss to the state. According to him, the current economic crisis can be attributed to the refusal of President Akufo-Addo to reshuffle his ministers; especially the finance minister, for new brains to steer the affairs of the economy. He averred that many talents were going waste due to the lack of opportunity for them to serve the country and devise strategies to help the economy from plunging further, as well as, prevent the cedi from depreciating against major trading currencies. Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile programme, Professor Gyampo said, “You cannot tell me Mr. Ofori-Atta is the best Finance Minister that Ghana would ever produce or that within Ghana at the moment there’s nobody in the NPP who can run our finances better than him...There are brains, there are talents that are going waste and I’m saying that tomorrow or someday to come somebody should be able to test this at the court, suing the President for causing financial loss to the state for not bringing on board the brains and the talents that could have been brought on board to help steer us, navigate us through the crisis we find ourselves. Why are we wasting them?" “…I’m saying that failure to reshuffle is tantamount to the dissipation of the limited human resource that we have that can be brought on board to help us navigate our way out of the quagmires of economic miserections which we find ourselves,” he added. The cedi has in recent times depreciated in value by 9.6%. According to Bloomberg, makes the total loss of the cedi in 2022 almost 52%, the highest recorded in 22 years. The free fall of the cedi now places the currency at the 148 position of worst-performing currencies in the world. Meanwhile, Ghana has run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance. Government of Ghana is targeting an amount of $3 billion over a three-year period from IMF once an agreement on a programme is reached. The new amount requested as a loan is double the government’s initial target of $1.5 billion. The IMF programme is aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability and safeguarding debt sustainability among many others. ESA/WA