The Deputy Upper East Regional Communication Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Casper Sunday Kampoli has called out the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for failing to live up to his many promises ahead of the 2016 election.
Mr. Kampoli expressed the firm belief that the current state of the Ghanaian economy has exposed the real size and competence or otherwise incompetence of the Vice President.
A recent currency performance ranking by Bloomberg has classified the Cedi as the worst-performing currency across the globe.
Bloomberg tracked the performance of 150 currencies in the world and the Cedi placed last in terms of performance since the beginning of the year.
In less than 8 months, the Cedi has come under intense exchange rate pressure due to its continuous depreciation to some major international currencies such as the Dollar, Pound and Euro. According to data put out by the Bank of Ghana, the Cedi began the year at $1.00 to GH¢6.02.
Just a month ago, one could exchange $1.00 for GH¢7.43, and in less than 20 days, traders needed an average of GH¢9.37 to buy $1.00. This means the Cedi has lost most than GH¢3.30 of its value to the dollar in less done 8 months.
Meanwhile, the country’s inflation stands at 31.5 percent coupled with the recent increases in utility tariffs. With these in mind, Mr. Kampoli argued that the VEEP’s ignorance of running an economy has come to bear.”
“Dr. Bawumia in opposition organised lectures at the Central University on the value of the cedi. We are told that when it comes to petroleum products, what we are going to see is largely caused by the depreciation of the cedi. If it is caused by the depreciation of the cedi, how would you blame the previous administration?”
“The cedi depreciated 12 to 13 percent annually. Today, you are talking about a 30 percent depreciation of the cedi. It is just about somebody’s cluelessness, somebody’s emptiness on how to manage an economy. This thing did not start today. It started long ago but they keep on using PR narratives, rhetoric, and platitudes to hoodwink the people of this country into thinking that they had the expertise to manage this country.”
“Today, look at where we are,” he said.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana