Ghana's Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has advised former President John Dramani Mahama to speak based on the data available with regard to how the economy is performing and stop running the risk of embarrassing himself.

Mr Mahama, in a Live Facebook interaction, said the economy, under the leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo, was in intensive care the COIVD-19 pandemic.

“Unfortunately, this government has used a lot of propaganda saying the economy has been the best that we have ever had since independence. Unfortunately, just one month of coronavirus the economy is in ICU. If we didn’t run to the IMF for the one billion rapid credit facility, it is possible that in the next month probably salaries would not have been paid and so our economy is on ventilators, and it needs thinking to rescue it from the ICU.” Mr Mahama said.

Responding to the flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress after a COVID-19 response team meeting on Monday, 4 May 2020, Dr Bawumia noted that Mr Mahama’s claims that COVID-19 has exposed how poorly the economy has been mismanaged was untrue.

“My humble advice to former President John Mahama is: ‘Take a look at the data, this is not green book data. Take a look at the data before you speak, otherwise, you will end up embarrassing yourself’. When it comes to the data, it has been very clear; in agricultural growth, we have performed better; industry growth, we have performed better; inflation, we have performed better, on interest rate, we did perform better; exchange rate depreciation, we have performed better. That is the data,” Dr Bawumia stated.

Dr Bawumia indicated that despite the heavy toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on the country’s economy, the government’s policy programmes and plans are still in progress.