Former President John Dramani Mahama has blamed the country’s economic woes on President Akufo-Addo’s penchant to satisfy his family and friends in government.

According to Mr Mahama, despite Ghana’s debt stock and the country’s inability to service its debt, the President has refused to fire his cousin, Ken Ofori-Atta.

He said even in the NPP, there are more competent people who could be appointed as Finance Minister but the President has remained adamant to the extent of ignoring his own Members of Parliament who were of the view that Mr Ofori-Atta had to be sacked.

Interacting with NDC party delegates and executives at the Ayawaso Central and Ayawaso West Wuogon constituencies, the former Ghanaian leader said Ghana needs an experienced leader like him to fix the mess created by the Akufo-Addo-led government.

“Our country Ghana is in reverse gear and we need an experience driver to rescue it and put it back on the path of growth. This government has destroyed almost every sector of our economy. The economy is destroyed and today, we cannot pay our debt and so we are going round like beggars and begging for debt forgiveness and how did we arrive here? Because of family and friends,” Mr Mahama stated.

“The president put his cousin as finance minister when in NPP there were even more capable people than his cousin and despite everything, he has refused to take him out of there. His own MPs rebelled against him, 80 of them, he has defied them and refused, meanwhile, we all know this finance minister was benefiting from all the loans he was taking, his company was benefiting, and so, when he was over-borrowing and we were telling him, he refused to listen and today this is where we’ve ended.”

Mr Mahama who seeking the mandate of NDC delegate to become the party’s flagbearer ahead of the 2024 elections told the gathering that Ghanaians want a change and the only viable alternative is the NDC.

“The time has come for NDC to come back and rescue this country. What Ghana needs today is an experienced government with an experienced leader who accepts responsibility and who works to fix whatever challenge we have, and I know that by the grace of God, I have that experience because I’ve done it before,” he stated.

Blowing his own horn, the former Ghanaian leader noted “I’ve taken my time to understudy big leaders from President Rawlings and even in President Kufuor’s time, I was an opposition MP, and I understudied President Mills and I had my own period when I took responsibility for this nation and we faced serious challenges but we solved them, we did not run away, we did not shift the blame to other people.”

Mr Mahama indicated that unlike the NDC and himself, “this government likes shifting blames to everything except themselves.”

“Anything that goes bad its either covid-19 or its Russia-Ukraine war or sometimes they say we make too much noise and money doesn’t like noise. After seven years in office the other day, I was reading and somebody said the economy is bad because of Mahama. After seven years, Mahama is still the name on your tongue. Everyday unless they mention my name they can’t sleep,” he added.