The IMF, in a Tuesday, 24th March, 2020 press release numbered 20/102 indicated that the Akufo-Addo-led government is in critical need of a Rapid Credit Facility to fund the Corona Virus pandemic in Ghana.
Weeks ago, President Akufo Addo, through Parliament granted a tax waiver of US$24M for a Hotel project of which his brother in-law has significant equity. The president, again, through his cousin and finance minister Ken Ofori Atta is ensuring that the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) supports the hotel project partly through public funds. This cumulatively puts about $31.5M of taxpayers’ monies into the private interest of the family hotel business.
Ghanaians are in utter shock as to how a government that raised $3 billion from bonds only this first quarter of 2020 and also gave over $31.5M of public monies to family and crony’s business is now on its knees begging the IMF for a loan (Rapid Credit Facility) before it can have the fiscal space to fund the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has become explicitly clear that the president has always put his family interest ahead of the public interest. This attitude of the president is very much obvious also in his decision to risk the lives of natives of the Eastern and Greater Accra regions in the National Identification Authority’s Ghana Card registration activities.
Indeed, President Akufo Addo will be remembered someday as a president who put his family’s interest ahead of the public interest; a president who put the politics of his re-election ahead of public health.
As the IMF press release exposes the greed and ineptitude of President Nana Addo, many Ghanaians want the president, as a matter of public interest, to reverse the public funds that he has granted his brother Inlaw so that the nation gets some respite in this difficult financial times. The COVID-19 has exposed the greed with which Akufo Addo has managed Ghana’s finances only for the greater benefit of his family, since becoming president.
By Ibrahim Yahaya, Baatsonaa Spintex
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