The Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has disagreed with suggestions by Dr John Kwabena Kwakye, the Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), to adopt the dollar as Ghana’s currency to stabilise the country’s economy.
The Executive Director of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, said Ghana’s primary challenges in stabilizing the economy stem from prolonged recklessness and excessive borrowing.
In an interview on Citi TV, Mr. Thompson attributed Ghana’s current economic difficulties to the alleged imprudence of former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Ernest Addison and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
“We are here not because our currency is not held in dollars, we are here because of the recklessness of Ken Ofori-Atta, the governor of the Central Bank and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The root cause of our problem is recklessness, borrowing, and people who just don’t understand simple economic management who implemented faze economic restructuring that has thrown the economy into a cyclic spiral now going back into a debt hole and the solution is not dollarisation” he said.
Mr. Thompson said the decision to restructure Ghana’s domestic debt was a bad idea that placed a strain on the cedi.
“I have always asked myself, why did the government, after all the recklessness of Ken Ofori-Atta, still decide that if they were going under a debt restructuring programme, Ken Ofori-Atta was the person they were going to allow to oversee that debt restructuring, I was surprised when he decided to restructure our domestic debt” he added.
ALSO READ:
MainOne submarine cable repairs complete: Internet services restored