Ofori-Atta massaging economic figures – Minority alleges

The Minority in Parliament has accused the Finance Minister of deliberately massaging economic figures to hide the true state of Ghana’s economy as it warns of consequences.

Speaking at a pre-budget roundtable discussion, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, cautioned Ken Ofori-Atta to avoid putting out similar figures as he presents the 2020 budget come Wednesday.

“We know that the Finance Minister is preparing to come to Parliament with some mashed potatoes tomorrow…mashed potatoes of massaged numbers.

“There are many happenings in the country including numbers that are being hidden, from dollars, from the IMF, from the Ghanaian public which would allow him to have cooked numbers in order to justify what deficit he wants to sell to the Ghanaian people.”

Former President John Mahama in October 2019, also claimed government was hiding the real deficit of the country from Ghanaians.

According to him, the Finance minister is bypassing the GIFMIS platform to make payments just so Ghanaians do not get to know the true state of affairs.

“There are many things that are going on; the economy is painted as being very rosy, various figures are being thrown about just to show that the economy is doing better but there are a lot of things the government is hiding from you.

“They are showing you a better balance sheet because they are misclassifying a lot of things and hiding things from the budget; they are making payments outside the GIFMIS,”, the former President told NDC supporters in the UK.