The Member of Parliament for the North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has asked President Akufo-Addo to ask the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to step aside as the Chairman of the Economic Management Team.
Mr. Ablakwa explained that much as the time is ripe for the President to reshuffle his Ministers, the starting point should be the Economic Management Team, because of the current economic challenges in the country.
“I expect the President to take clear actions on the economy. He should reshuffle his team, the Vice-President who has been a fantastic failure should be asked to step aside as Chairman of the Economic Management Team,” he added.
President Akufo-Addo set up the current nine-member Economic Management Team in February, 2017 as part of efforts to enhance fiscal discipline through prudent public resource and debt management.
Its Chair is Vice President Bawumia and Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo is Vice-Chair. Other members are Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister for Finance; Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture; John Peter Amewu, Minister of Energy; Professor George Gyan Baffour, Minister for Planning; Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, Minister of Trade and Industry; and Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation with Professor Joe Amoako-Tuffour as the team’s secretary.
According to him, it is time to get visionary and competent managers of the economy to take over because the same old people who have put the country into this crisis have no proper plan that can redeem the economy.
Speaking with Emefa Adeti on JoyPrime on Wednesday, the legislator said, “what Ghana needs now is new managers of the economy who have fresh ideas to steer the economic affairs of the country, this will help Ghana bounce back to its feet”.
He added that the President should take responsibility for the economic woes and stop blaming them on global issues because if the fundamentals of the economy are at work, these global crises will not affect Ghana.
“Global crisis only exposes bad and incompetent managers of the economy. This government has to come out with effective measures on economic management and stop the blame game”, he noted.
Touching on the increase in petroleum prices, the MP called on the government to pay attention to the numerous taxes in the sector and scrap some of them.
He added that government should adopt strategic measures to stabilize the cedi depreciation since that has a direct effect on the cost of petroleum products.
“If not for the high taxes on petroleum products coupled with the massive depreciation of the Ghana Cedi, there wouldn’t have been much hike like it is happening now”, Mr. Ablakwa lamented.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is expected to address the nation on the state of the economy on April 7.
This was disclosed by the spokesperson for the Vice-President, Dr. Gideon Boako in an interview on Accra-based Asempa FM on Tuesday.
“The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, will speak next month, in April 2022, also at a platform somewhere in Cape Coast, for you to see that the Government has rolled out a plan to deal with the issues,” he said.