I lost $12 million to cedi depreciation – Agyapong blasts Bawumia for ‘bowing to Ofori-Atta’
Assin Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong has lambasted Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia for “allowing the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta to bully him”, a situation he said has messed up the country’s economy.
The businessman and lawmaker who is seeking to contest the flagbearer race of the governing New Patriotic Party is heard in an audio lamenting to a group of people believed to be party members, how the bad management of Ghana’s economy by the government has made him lose a whopping $12 million between March to August this year alone.
In the audio, which is circulating on social media, Agyapong accused Bawumia of playing propaganda with the economy, saying he misled Ghanaians with his sweet-talking to kick the John Mahama-led National Democratic Congress out of power only for his government to plunge the country into severe hardship.
“What message do you want to give to Ghanaians again? Let me tell you; I’m telling you this straight; I’m saying all these things because of [something]…from March this year to August this year, through the exchange rate, I lost $12 million,” Kennedy Agyapong is heard saying in the audio.
He is calling for new faces to lead the NPP into the 2024 presidential election because the current team the helm of the country’s affairs has disappointed Ghanaians and the party.
He recalled how Bawumia criticized the erstwhile NDC government for mismanagement of the economy at a time the Ghana cedi was just GHC4.20 to the dollar, but now, in his words, it is hovering around GHC 15 to one dollar.
Ghana is currently hoping for a possible $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund while skyrocketing fuel prices, a rising cost of living and a depreciating cedi intensifies the prevailing hardship by the day.
In the 2023 budget statement, Ghanaians had expected that the government would announce some measures to ease their suffering. But it rather announced a freeze on all public sector employment, increased the VAT rate by 2.5% and removed the GHC 100 threshold for the controversial e-levy, all of which policies analysts say will worsen the hardship that the citizens are grappling with.
Meanwhile, an international credit rating agency, Moody’s has downgraded Ghana from Caa2 to Ca.
“The Ca rating reflects Moody’s expectation that private creditors will likely incur substantial losses in the restructuring of both local and foreign currencies debts planned by the government as part of its 2023 budget proposed to Parliament on 24 November 2022.
“Given Ghana’s high government debt burden and the debt structure, it is likely there will be substantial losses on both categories of debt in order for the government to meaningfully improve debt sustainability,” Moody’s said in a statement on Tuesday, November 29, 2022.
The government of Ghana has not responded to the latest downgrade yet.
