The Minority in Parliament has punched holes into President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo‘s State of the Nation Address,(SONA), describing it as unconvincing.
Presenting his second address on the State of the Nation, the President touted his achievements saying Ghana, since he assumed the reins of office has been put back on the right path, with his vision of a ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ well within reach.
On the same occasion in 2017, he conveyed what he said was his dismay at the full extent of the economic mess, in which “our nation was mired” noting further that, “We had inherited an economy that was in distress, choked by debt, and with macroeconomic fundamentals in disarray.”
But, “I am glad to be able to report that the Economic Management Team, under the stellar leadership of the strong, brilliant economist, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, has risen to the challenge, and the hard work is beginning to show positive results,” he told Parliament Thursday February 8, 2018.
In his reaction, however, the Minority’s spokesperson on finance, Ato Forson rubbished the address as empty.
“I am not convinced. I think that his Excellency, the President missed an opportunity; one, to bring the nation together and two, to apologise to the people of this country by telling us that he actually over promised and for that matter some of them he can’t achieve them and let us give him the chance to move the country forward on the levels that we forget about the promises that he has made because he can’t achieve them,” he told Starr News.
“But unfortunately” he continued “he came again to add to the promises that already cannot be achieved and delivered a message that is not the true State of the nation.
According to him, the true state of the nation is “hardship” and it is getting to an “unbearable limit” as the “misery index” is rising at a level that if care is not taken could explode.
“In fact, it is a security threat,” he stressed noting that youth unemployment is indescribable but the President failed to proffer concrete measures his government would be charting to solve it.
Forson who is a former deputy Finance Minister argued that the President’s assertions of the economy could not be accurate at a time when the cedi is depreciating at a worrying pace.
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