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According to him, the Akufo-Addo government can, therefore, not blame the state of the economy on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahama said this during his tour of the Volta region, when he addressed a gathering at the palace of the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbui Afede XIV.
He said Ghana’s economy was already struggling before the pandemic and described its current state as the worst in the Fourth Republic.
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“In the history of the Fourth Republic the economy has not been as bad as it is today and let nobody say it’s because of coronavirus,” the NDC flagbearer said.
“The economy was already struggling before coronavirus came. And for the first time in our history, the finance ministry presents two sets of figures on the economy. One they present to parliament, the other they present to the IMF.”
Mahama reiterated his claim that the economy is currently in ICU, and attributed this to what he described as “political shortsightedness” and “political victimisation”.
He said governance should be based on planning and common sense, but the Akufo-Addo government is rather bent on taking “decisions that are aimed at penalising their political opponents.”
“In one, they say the fiscal deficit is below 5 per cent. In the other, the fiscal deficit is above 7 per cent but we will end this year with the worst fiscal deficit we’ve ever had in the history of Ghana.
“It is possible we will end this year with a fiscal deficit of almost 15 per cent of GDP and that is because we’ve had poor managers of the economy,” Mahama added.