It is ‘absolutely foolish’ to blame Akufo-Addo gov’t for cedi depreciation – Kwesi Pratt

Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., says it will be “absolutely foolish” to lay blame at the doorstep of the current administration for the downward spiral of the local currency, the cedi.

Likewise will it be “senseless”, he posits, if the NDC-led Mahama administration accused of allowing the cedi to depreciate alarmingly when Mr John Dramani Mahama was in power.

Contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold’s ‘Alhaji and Alhaji’ show, the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper opined that perhaps the Akufo-Addo government can be faulted for not doing enough to alter the economic fundamentals, and also for just “tinkering” with the issue.

“We can blame the Akufo-Addo administration for not doing anything to alter the fundamentals in the more than 2 years that it has been in office; that is where they take the blame and not for causing the problem,” he pontificated.

He indicated that President Akufo-Addo and his government should be blamed for deceiving Ghanaians that the dollar has been arrested and put under lock and key in the custody of the IGP, when indeed the dollar was swaggering on the streets of Accra.

“ . . everybody can see the dollar was trotting on the street and the Vice President Dr. Bawumia came and told us that he has arrested the dollar and so we can be very angry with him for deceiving us,” he stated.



“ . . another reason we ought to be blaming them is simply the fact they know that what they are doing is cosmetics. They know that they are only tinkering with the public and not solving the problem”.

Whiles jabbing the Vice-President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia for claiming the fundamentals of the economy was weak which is why the cedi was running amok, he entreated “people with PhDs” to be consistent in their utterances.

“Why did Alhaji H.E Dr. Bawumia tell us that when the fundamentals are weak the exchange rate will expose you? Now that the fundamentals are very weak, that is why there is this time big exposure. Then you get this big time exposure then you get all kinds of spokespersons saying the fundamentals are good because the GDP ratio is very good, inflation is fantastic and so on; so what is the exchange rate exposing now? The exchange rate is now exposing good fundamentals but under Mahama, the exchange rate exposes bad fundamentals”, he jabbed.

“Let’s be a little bit consistent; let’s assume that the Ghanaians who listen to us are a little bit sensible. We don’t have PhDs attached to our names but we are capable of thinking; we are capable of recognising inconsistency in people’s attitudes and statements. They should give us that respect,” he added.

Source: peacefmonline.com