Ken Ofori-Atta cannot resign – Kojo Oppong Nkrumah defends beleaguered Finance Minister
Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has shrugged off calls for Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to resign following Ghana’s decision to enter the International Monetary Fund IMF program.
Speaking during an interview on Citi FM, he indicated that the Finance Minister cannot be blamed for the country’s decision to seek the fund’s help.
He explained that “the minister responsible for fiscal policy, finance has expressed a view, a view supported by government, that it is better to use domestic measures to deal with some of these [economic] challenges than to find yourself in a situation where you need external help of this nature. Unfortunately, domestic measures have been challenged. Any president who feels the pain of his people will explore what options work best. This is the window that the president has asked us to open and engage to ensure that we can find the necessary resources to deal with the short-term problem but also deal with the bigger economic problem.”
The government last week indicated that Mr Ofori-Atta will be leading the negotiations with the IMF in the coming days.
After Ghana decided to seek an IMF bailout, calls for Ofori-Atta’s resignation have intensified as he has on many public platforms reiterated that the passage of the controversial E-levy bill will ensure that the country does not go under an IMF programme.
Meanwhile, Former President John Dramani Mahama and other leading members of the NDC have also called for the removal of the Finance Minister from office, describing his performance as “abysmal.”
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah added that President Akufo-Addo is responsible for all economic policies and not Ken Ofori-Atta.
“The president is responsible for economic policy, sometimes we think the finance minister is responsible for the economy. He [Ofori-Atta] is responsible for fiscal policy. Real sector development and broader economic policy, sit with the president. He has an Economic Management Team under him that will be doing the day-to-day management. The president is in full control of the end-of-day engagement that we’ll have with the fund. He spoke with the fund managing director on the phone,” he added.
