General News of Sunday, 19 February 2023

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

‘Well, maybe, you never know’ – John Mahama undecided over presidential bid

John Dramani Mahama play videoJohn Dramani Mahama

Former president John Dramani Mahama has rejected the label of presumptive presidential candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

John Mahama whiles refusing to explicitly state whether he still nurses ambitions of returning to the Jubilee House said, the NDC will hold an elective congress to decide who leads the party in 2024.

“I know and believe you want to be president again,” he was asked by YouTuber Wode Maya on the sidelines of the 2023 Munich Security Conference, to which Mahama responded: “Well, maybe, you never know what happens.”

On the subject of what he will do differently if he finds himself as president again, Mahama submitted: “I keep getting asked this question a lot of time, we did a lot in our time and at the time our focus was on infrastructure”

He listed a number of infrastructure built under the last NDC government, among others, roads, interchanges, airport terminals, habours, schools, hospitals, clinics.

“I know that if we do come into office in 2025, the fiscal space is going to be very narrow because of the economic crisis in which we are,” he cautioned.

Government run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2022 at a time the economy was in a downward spiral.

The government only recently secured a Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), which according to experts is a major conditionality of the lender in granting Board approval for a US$3 billion bailout.

The programme was meant to ensure the streamlining of Ghana's unsustainable debt. Government announced an 85% participation rate.

Ghana is hoping to get the first tranche of the bailout by March this year in order to among others rein in inflation and arrest the galloping depreciation of the cedi.



SARA