'Only a useless government blames a past government after six years in office' – Edem Agbana

A deputy NDC National Youth Organiser, Edem Agbana, has tagged the ruling NPP government as useless as its leaders keep blaming the erstwhile Mahama administration for the country’s economic woes.

Speaking to Prince Minkah on Dwaboase on TV XYZ, the youth leader wondered what the Akufo-Addo appointees have been doing for the past six years after assuming office.

To him, managing a country should not be done with lies and slogans like the NPP government has been doing since 2017 only to turn around to blame its predecessor for the gross incompetence showcased by the Akufo-Addo regime.

“It is only a useless government that continues to blame past government after six years in office,” Edem Agbana stated as he decried the country’s debt to GDP ratio which has been ballooning towards 90 per cent.

Economic crisis

Agbana’s comment comes on the heels of an escalating inflation fuelled by incessant hikes in the prices of petroleum products amid an economic meltdown.

Rating agency, Fitch, downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency (LTFC) Issuer Default Rating (IDR) from ‘B-‘ to ‘CCC’.

The downgrade, it said, reflects the deterioration of Ghana’s public finances, which has contributed to a prolonged lack of access to Eurobond markets, in turn leading to a significant decline in external liquidity.

“In the absence of new external financing sources, international reserves will fall close to two months of current external payments (debits in the current account) by end-2022”, it explained.

Prior to that, another rating agency S&P Global Ratings had downgraded Ghana’s debt further into speculative territory, lowering the country’s foreign and local currency sovereign ratings to junk.

The economy was rated from B-/B to CCC+/C with negative outlook.

Before that, Moody’s had also downgraded Ghana to Caa1 with a stable outlook in February this year.

According to S&P the negative outlook reflects “Ghana’s limited commercial financing options, and constrained external and fiscal buffers.”