A public interest advocacy group calling itself, Youth for Accountable Governance (YAG), has called on the Majority Caucus in Parliament to reconsider their decision to cause the dismissal of the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta.
The group noted that the economic situation that has affected the lives of numerous Ghanaians is not the creation of any individual in the world.
According to them, the challenges facing the country are not peculiar to Ghana as many other nations across the globe are going through the same phenomena, therefore cannot be blamed on the finance minister.
“The exogenous factors which include the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have deepened the woes of Africa and have thus exposed the generational failure of building a robust African-Ghanaian economy free from external loans and grants.”
They said this in a petition letter to the majority members of Parliament of the ruling New Patriotic Party, signed by the Executive Secretary of the group, Benjamin Gyawu Appiah.
To them, they deem these calls to be a way for the Ghanaian people to vent out their frustrations and express their dissatisfaction with the performance of the Ghanaian Economy and general response to several allegations including mismanagement, incompetence, conflict of interest, and among other things leveled against the Finance Minister.
However, after extensively monitoring the proceedings of the committee, YAG sees the calls for the removal or resignation of the finance minister as “only sentimental and emotional but not on fortified grounds of any of the stated malfeasances as widely speculated in the media.”
The group further described the allegations against the finance minister as untrue although there are certain domestic factors.
They argued that the economic distress is largely due to external shocks which the finance minister has no control over.
YAG therefore appealed that the caucus reconsiders its stance in demanding the sacking or resignation of Ken Ofori Atta because same is not in the bigger interest of the nation.
“The interest of the nation is to see the country sail through our economic challenges and to do this, the collective efforts of all stakeholders including this caucus is largely needed by the
ordinary Ghanaian,” the group’s petition contained.
