Steve Hanke, a professor of Applied Economics at the Johns Hopkins University and founder and co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics, is asking how the government of Ghana will be saving the country’s economy from collapsing.
According to him, it will not be prudent for Ken Ofori-Atta, the finance minister, to be fabricating the country’s numbers just to look good in the eyes of the international community and investors.
He tweeted that on his economic dashboard, Ghana’s inflation is now being measured at 158 per cent.
“Today, I measure #Ghana’s inflation at a stunning 158%/yr. What’s Finance Minister Ofori-Atta’s plan to save the economy? Will Ofori-Atta just fabricate the numbers? Apparently, he’s done that before,” Prof Hanke said.
The economist was commenting on claims by the minority that Ken Ofori-Atta since he was appointed the finance minister has been presenting inaccurate figures to Parliament.
Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, Asawase MP, while debating on the need for Parliament to pass a vote of censure on the finance minister indicated that “In 2018 he reported to this house that the fiscal deficit was 3.9% of GDP when he had to report to the World Bank the actual was 7.1% of GDP.
“In 2019, he reported that the fiscal deficit was 4.8% when the actual to be reported to the International Monetary Fund the actual was 7.1% to GDP.
“In 2022, he reported that the fiscal deficit was 11.7% of GDP when the actual was 17.2 %. In 2021 he reported 9.2% when the actual was 12.4%.”
The Minority Chief Whip was of the view that the finance minister has shown beyond doubt that he is not able to the finances of the country, thus must be removed.
“What are we waiting for, from this Minister before we will now believe the time has come for him to exit? I am reliably informed that he is part of the impediment that is not making us conclude the negotiations with the IMF,” Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka stressed.
