CEO of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, has said that President John Dramani Mahama has also admitted that exogenous factors impact Ghana’s economy.
He referenced President Mahama’s previous address at Harvard University, where he acknowledged that the COVID-19 outbreak impacted global economies, including Ghana, except that in the Ghana case, the election year spending in 2020 skyrocketed the budget deficit to about 15 per cent.
Speaking on TV3’s New Day on Monday, Edudzi Tameklo, also a private legal practitioner, said “fact is a fact, you can have an opinion, but as for the fact, it is fact. Like I always say, if you cannot be honest about it, at least be accurate. President John Dramani Mahama has always been consistent about the influence of exogenous factors on our economy, no doubt.
“That is why even when he read the state of the nation address when he was president for the first time, he made it abundantly clear that whatever happens in China impacts us, it has always been the NDC politics. Even in 1999, you remember it was the Finance Minister who gave us the price of petrol, our parents would be by the radio waiting to hear what the Finance Minister would say was the price of petrol.
“But the point ought to be made clear, President Mahama at Harvard University, abundantly admitted that Covid, in fact, had an impact on the global economy; however, in the specific case of Ghana, the 2020 election brought about a budget deficit of 15 per cent, the highest in the whole of West Africa. President Mahama then questioned how come that we had 15 per cent, and that it was election spending.”
Prior to Edudzi’s comment, a Former Deputy Energy Minister, Andrew Egyapa Mercer, had called for a change in the way politics is done in Ghana, where the central government is blamed for external factors.
He recalled that during the Akufo-Addo administration, when the Covid and the Russian-Ukrainian war struck, the impact of these developments affected the local economy. However, he said, the then opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), continuously accused the Akufo-Addo administration of mismanagement.
Currently, he added, the Mahama administration wants Ghanaians to believe that the ongoing Middle East crisis will affect the economy.
“We were told that bombs flying 7,000 kilometres away from Ghana do not have anything to do with our economy. So what has changed? It is sad how we do our politics in this country,” he said on TV3 Monday, March 16.
He added “The government has no control over the pricing of fuel. Hence, they can not do anything about the fuel price hike.”
For his part, Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo, Acting CEO, National Petroleum Authority, said “We are still doing almost 60% imports. This means that anything that happens exogenously would impact fuel pricing.”
