According to Clement Apaak to Bawumia, the name Mahama is not always associated with lying

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has been challenged by the Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Apaak, to demonstrate his skill in running the Ghanaian economy by keeping the cedi from depreciating further against major trading currencies.

He claims that Dr. Bawumia criticised the Mahama government of neglecting solutions he proposed to Ghana’s failing economy and the cedi before the National Patriotic Party won the election on December 7. He said that the time is now to make a difference.

“…Before he was elected vice president, he gave a series of lectures to Ghanaians both at home and abroad, as well as to members of the international community, primarily about the economy and what he and his party thought was not going well. And many Ghanaians, among us, had the impression that they knew how to solve the problems we were having. Therefore, if he and his superior, the President, are now in charge of this country’s affairs based on these convincing arguments, then logically we have every reason to expect that he would be able to arrest the cedi as he has stated on numerous occasions, he argued on Citi FM’s News analysis program, The Big Issue on Saturday.

Financial professionals have expressed a number of concerns about the condition of the cedi, which has been declining over the past few months.

According to data made available to Citi News by the Bank of Ghana and a few local forex offices, the cedi lost value on the interbank foreign exchange market by around 5.4 percent between January and February of this year.

The cedi has recently been referred to as “the poorest performing currency on the African continent” by certain financial analysts, including GN Research.

The 2017 budget statement was delivered by the Minister of Finance to Parliament last week, but the Minority in Parliament said that it lacked a clear plan for stabilising the cedi.

Although they [the NDC] are aware of the basic problems impacting the Ghanaian economy and their effects on the performance of the cedi, Mr. Apaak explained that the NPP ignored their justifications when they [the NPP] were in opposition.

That is not to suggest that we don’t acknowledge the fact that there are certain basic problems with our economy, which have an impact on how well our currency performs in relation to other international currencies, particularly the dollar. We have long made clear that our nation relies heavily on imports, that we produce little of what we consume, and that price fluctuations caused by global unrest also harm us. We had presented all of these justifications, but they [NPP] refused, claiming that their lack of expertise was to blame. Now that we have a capable squad in place, we should arrest Cedi. We are arguing that point, he continued.