He said the economic difficulties Ghanaians are currently facing is the doing of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo administration.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Signature Market Pre-launch campaign at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Professor Adei said that overborrowing exacerbated the economic crisis.
“I think the biggest mistake they made is that they borrowed beyond our capacity to service it.
"If you are a country and you borrow beyond your capacity, you will be in trouble, of course, COVID-19 came in, and the Russia-Ukraine [war, too].
“But the reason why things got worse is because of these underlying mistakes they made and they must admit it", Prof Adei explained.
He added: "If not, they won’t be going to IMF.
"If you are a government and you go broke you re-negotiate with your debtors. I think the debt restructuring will go through”.
“We have to learn and not repeat our mistakes by going on a borrowing spree", he advised, noting: "We should become watchdogs".
"The leakages should be reduced, the level of corruption, the wastage from the government after government is high, so, we don’t get value for money,” he stated.
Relatedly, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta has left Accra to China for talks on the country's debt restructuring.
According to sources, the Minister traveled to Addis Ababa over the weekend in order to attend the UNECA High-Level Ministers Meeting on Global Financial Architecture.
Mr. Ofori-Atta is anticipated to travel to China following that meeting, possibly on March 22, 2023. In addition to requesting financial guarantees for Ghana's program with the International Monetary Fund, the Minister who is leading the government delegation is anticipated to pursue bilateral discussions with China.