Accra, Ghana, April 3, 2019//-Ghana’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia distorted the facts of the Ghanaian economy when he spoke during the Economic Management Team town hall meeting on Wednesday, 3 April 2019.The party said in a statement that it will respond to all the claims by Dr Bawumia at an event on Thursday at the Mensvic Hotel in Accra.
A statement signed by the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, said: “The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken note of the town hall meeting addressed today by the Chairman of the Economic Management Team, H.E. Dr Mahamudu Bawuma.”
“In a manner reminiscent of the utterances during the 2016 general election campaign, Dr Bawumia’s lecture was full of misleading facts and patent misstatements laced with the usual populist rhetoric rather than a fact-based presentation on the economy.”
“The NDC Finance and Economic Team will take advantage of the public lecture organised by the Coalition for Restoration (CFR) to address the numerous distortions and lay bare the true facts of the state of the Ghanaian economy.”
During his lecture, Dr Bawumia said, among other things, that it is “warped” reasoning on the part of NDC to say that the fact that there has been a fall in the value of the cedi necessarily means Ghana’s economic fundamentals are weak.
He said the cedi fall was largely due to external factors rather than weak fundamentals of the economy, unlike, in his opinion, it pertained in 2014 when he (Dr Bawumia), famously said: “If the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you”.
According to Dr Bawumia, “Factors such as the inflation rate, the balance of trade, the fiscal balance, money supply, are what we refer to as the fundamentals. But speculation and expectations about these fundamentals; external shocks such as oil price increases, can also have powerful short-term effects on the exchange rate.
“When we see pressures on the exchange rate, first we need to determine where these pressures are coming from or whether the pressures are transitory or permanent. And as every astute central banker knows, even with strong economic fundamentals, speculation, expectation and investor sentiment can exert pressures on the exchange rate.
African Eye Report/ Classfrmonline
