‘The difficulties are there, I will be the last one to minimize them’ – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has admitted that times are hard but he has also appealed on Ghanaians to trust his government to turn things around.

The president believes that Ghana is not alone in experiencing the current economic headwinds brought on by the impact of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war.

He is upbeat that all things being equal, programmes being put in place by the government will return Ghana onto the track of economic growth and development.

Speaking on North Star Radio in Tamale on August 8, as part of his official visit to the Northern Region, Akufo-Addo said: “The difficulties are there, I will be the last one to minimize the difficulties, they are affecting the lives of ordinary people in a very negative way.

“But what I am saying to the people of Ghana is, continue to have confidence that this government that took our economy from one of the lowest growth rates in our modern history, when I came into office in 2017 and brought it up to one of the fasted growing in the world… this government that was able to steer Ghana through the COVID pandemic,” he added.

He said significant proactive steps have been taken to minimize the impact of the COVID, citing that due to government’s prudence, Ghana has had some of the “lowest mortality and infection (rates) preventing the pandemic from having significant negative impact on economy.

“This government with the policies that it is committed to, will find a way to bring our economy back to a place and improve the lot of the Ghanaians. We are required to, apart from anything, we are politicians,” he stressed.

President Akufo-Addo ordered Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta via a July 1 statement present an economic rescue programme to the IMF.

A team from the Fund led by Carlo Sdralevich has since visited Ghana between July 6 – 13, meeting with relevant stakeholders.

Ghana’s economic headaches

In recent months, Ghana has been faced with rather difficult economic challenges which have left almost all economic indicators in distress.

The country, in spite of some gains made during the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing a huge debt burden, revenue generation constraints and other factors which have placed the economy in a dire situation.

Recent developments around the globe, coupled with supply chain disruptions, the fallout from the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made the situation even direr.

Meanwhile, the government of Ghana is targeting about US$3 billion from the International Monetary Fund under an economic support programme.

This was contained in a document released by the Ministry of Finance spelling out some details of the government’s engagement with officials from the Bretton Woods institution in July.

The ministry explained that it seeks to secure the fund under a recently introduced innovative blended programme from the IMF dubbed; High Combined Credit Exposure (HCCE) policy.

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