Former President John Dramani Mahama has said the ongoing geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine cannot be the reason Ghanaians are suffering.
He indicated that the people of Ghana were struggling due to the bad economic management by President Akufo-Addo way before the outbreak of the warfare.
In a presentation he made titled “Ghana at Crossroad” on Monday May 2, he said “The Russia-Ukraine conflict cannot possibly, be responsible for the suffering we are going through.
“The sufferings Ghanaians are going through predate the war. Before this conflicts, our currency had already been depreciating and was impacting negatively on fuel and commodity prices in our markets, fuel prices have gone up on more than forty different occasions since 2017, long before Russia and Ukraine started fighting.”
Recently, the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who is also head of the Economic Management Team, said Ghana is directly affected by the war.
He stated while addressing TESCON members on Thursday April 7 that Russia accounts for some 30 per cent of Ghana’s imported grains , 50 per cent of flour and 39 per cent of fertilizer.
The warfare therefore affected the local economy, he said.
“The increase in commodity prices has been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russia and Ukraine together account for 30 per cent of the global wheat export. The longer the conflict the greater will be the disruptions to global food supply. The country is also likely to slow global growth.
“According to the AfDB the price of wheat has shot up by 62 per cent since the war begun. The price of fertilizer is up by 300 per cent, the price of maize is up by 36 per cent since the war began. Here in Ghana 60 per cent of our total imports of iron ore and steel are from Ukraine.
“Russia accounts for some 30 per cent of Ghana’s imported grains, 50 per cent of flour and 39 per cent of fertilizer . So we are directly affected by the Russia-Ukraine ware. Unfortunately, we do not know when it will be over. The global increase in fuel prices is causing hardship.”
The Russian Embassy in Ghana took exception to the attribution of the current economic crisis across the globe to the Vladimir Putin-led invasion of Ukraine in February.
“However, the truth is different,” the Embassy said in a tweet on Monday.
“The Embassy wishes to shed some light on the roots and drivers of this crisis and provide a comprehensive and objective analysis without emotions and political prejudice.”
In a thread to the main tweet, Kremlin’s representative in Accra explained that the current situation in the food market, for instance, started two years ago and “not a result of two months of this year”.
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana