John Mahama: Ken Ofori-Atta is Cooking Economic Figures to Fool the IMF and Rating Agencies

Former President John Mahama has reiterated his earlier accusations that Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has been conjuring figures from the air and presenting them to fool the International Monetary Fund and international rating agencies in an attempt to hide the true state of the economy.

In an interview he reportedly granted a radio station, Mr. Mahama is quoted as saying the embattled Ofori-Atta has been cooking figures since 2017 to fool everybody.

“It’s not today that we raised the issue of the Finance Minister [Ken Ofori-Atta] cooking the books, he’s been cooking the books over the last four years. What he does is he leaves out some big-ticket budget items and pushes them as ‘footnotes’ so that he can get a better fiscal report to give to the international community,” Mahama alleged.

“He has used it to fool the IMF [International Monetary Fund], he has used it to fool Moody’s, Fitch and all the rating agencies. He’s used it to fool the Economist Intelligence Unit, all of them by giving a rosy picture that they are better economic management.”

A Harvard-trained man, Ofori-Atta has been a disaster in office as Finance Minister, borrowing Ghana into a debt black hole that dwarfs all public debt accumulated since Ghana’s Independence. Also, contrary to campaign promises, the Akufo Addo administration has afflicted Ghanaians with huge taxes.

Ken Ofori-Atta was also the man who led the Akufo-Addo government’s supposed financial sector cleanup which many believe was a vengeance project against perceived political opponents and personal rivals of Ofori-Atta in the country’s banking space.

After claiming their programs are making the economy stronger, Ghanaians have been finding out that the economy has rather been weakening – the country’s debt is out of control with Ofori-Atta now disputing and juggling debt to GDP figures with the IMF.

While the IMF has said Ghana’s debt to GDP ratio is some 84.87% Ofori-Atta has been claiming it is some 78.4%, making Ofori-Atta the only finance Minister who has juggled debt to GDP figures with the IMF.

In the past the NDC has pointed out that anytime this Harvard-trained Finance Minister compiles his report, he leaves very important figures out, such as energy sector debts, relegating them as footnotes in his report as though those debts are in isolation.

In 2020, this style of dodgy accounting led to the IMF reporting that Ghana’s Debt to GDP ratio was 78% while Ofori-Atta claimed it was 76.1%. this disputation and juggling of figures with the IMF has continued into 2022.

In 2017, Mr. Ofori-Atta reduced the domestic interest payment for the first half of 2017 by an amount of 657,005,271 to create the impression that expenditure on domestic interest payment is being reduced.

Amidst the voodoo accounting by Ofori-Atta, investors have been responding by avoiding bonds and other forms of loan programs by Ghana. The country’s creditworthiness was recently downgraded to B- by the international rating agency, Fitch.

Source: whatsupnewsghana