Akufo-Addo has no reason to plead for more time for Ken Ofori-Atta – Prof Agyeman-Duah
Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, Chief Executive Officer of the John Agyekum Kufuor Foundation has indicated that he agrees with the calls for the Finance Minister to be sacked.
During a discussion on TV3 on 26th October 2022, Prof Agyeman-Duah said, “I will be a hypocrite if I say I do not agree because I made this call some months ago especially since the economy took a nose dive so I will not run away from that”.
The former United Nations Senior Advisor admitted that the demand from the 80 Members of Parliament from the president had brought a whole new twist to the situation. “These calls started some months ago. Civil Society Groups have also been making but what happened was 80 Members of Parliament of the ruling party held a press conference to publicly air their views to demand that the Senior Minister to be recalled or sacked that in itself is unprecedented”.
The 80 legislators’ stance according to him “adds momentum to the call that is what has attracted the president of the republic and that was why there was a crunch meeting to find a way to resolve it.
He added that “so the call being made I think is justified in so many ways and many Ghanaians across the board are not happy with the way the economy is. It may not be the direct fault of the Minister as he performed well for the past four years and we are all aware of the emergence of Covid-19 and the Ukraine and Russia war government often cites to explain our difficulty”.
Giving his candid thoughts on Ghana’s eventual turn to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout, Prof Agyeman-Duah noted “the fact that he stood firmly against going to the IMF for intervention which as a principle I respected as I wished we had not gone there because anytime we go there we demean ourselves as a people so once he stood on that principle I admired it but now he is the same person who did not want to go is the one leading negotiations. Hence, I am not surprised that pressure is being mounted on the President to recall the Finance Minister .’’
Professor Agyeman-Duah said appeals by the president for more time for the Minister to complete negations with the IMF is untenable. “I don’t think that argument holds water. See Mr Kwasi Kwarteng the first black chancellor in the United Kingdom was in Washington negotiating with the IMF when Liz Struss decided to recall him as soon as he landed in the United Kingdom he was asked to resign and that did not hinder the negotiations between the Brits and the IMF. This shows systems in nations are not built around only one individual so I believe Ghana is capable of getting another person to continue the negotiation so the President’s reason is not a strong argument”.
