General News of Friday, 8 April 2022
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2022-04-08Why Bawumia was quiet about economy - Dr. Gideon Boako explains
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Economic Advisor and spokesperson for Vice President, Dr. Gideon Boako, has justified Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s long silence on the economy despite its recent downturn.
According to him, the posture adopted by the Vice President was to prevent
Read full articleunnecessary fear and panic in the system as the government worked behind the scenes to find lasting solutions.
Speaking on Joy News programme, PM Express, he mentioned that the exchange rate market did not want ‘noise’ adding that such an atmosphere would have painted a picture of uncertainty to the international exchange rate market.
“The thing is the exchange rate market doesn’t want noise. So if you are an economist and you’re managing an economy and there seems to be some level of turbulence in the exchange rate market, you don’t hurry to create noise in the system.
“Because, mind you, the whole exchange rate exposures somehow thrive on noise and the responses to impulses. So you’ll have to be careful that if you are a leader, especially if you are the Chairman of the Economic Management team and you see your cedi, your currency tumbling in a way, you need to sit back, do the proper diagnosis, identify where the cause is and see how you’ll deal with that.”
The economy has recently witnessed a downturn with many pointing to the fast-depreciating Cedi and general cost of living as basis for their claim.
Dr. Gideon Boako avers that the measures being implemented by the government after its long silence are fast yielding some positive results.
“What this government decided to do in the midst of the challenges that we saw ... we decided to sit back, identify the problem, proffer the solution, and then talk less and let it happen and then you can talk about it.
“We saw the effect and the impact on the exchange rate market, the rates that were seen at 8.7, 8.8 quickly dropped and now we are around seven point something. That is not the best that we want though but you see some level of calmness restored to the exchange rate market,” he said.
The opposition party, National Democratic Congress has blamed the government for the economic hardship citizens are experiencing.
The party claims the government has mismanaged the economy and has further worsened it by its ballooning public sector debt.
View his Timepath below:
