Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has deferred his response to former President John Mahama’s mockery of the ‘much-touted’ resilient economy till after the fight against COVID-19.
According to Mr. Oppong Nkrumah, in order not to lose focus on the fight against the global pandemic, the Akufo-Addo administration will only accept the NDC flagbearer’s invitation to a political banter after they have successfully dealt with COVID-19.
“The comments by the former President about a resilient economy which couldn’t stand the test of COVID-19 is a very tempting attempt to get us into politics but like I have said, we decline the invitation to get into politics. If you listened to the President’s speech yesterday, he said we should hold on to the politics at this critical stage of our battle. We will have time for politics but right now, we will lose focus on the key issues of the fight if we introduce politics. He has said what he wants to say but we won’t respond. This is a global crisis and we have done our best to contain it,” he said.
The former President said in a Facebook address last week that the Akufo-Addo government’s economy which was widely touted as resilient and robust has been exposed after only a month of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But speaking on Peace FM on Monday, the Ofoase-Ayirebi legislator said the government won’t risk its focus on the complex COVID-19 problem for partisan politics.
He reiterated President Akufo-Addo’s call to all political party leaders to join hands in the fight against the pandemic to ensure that Ghana wins in the end.
“Under his leadership as a former President, there wasn’t a global crisis. The crisis his government brought which they couldn’t contain was the energy crisis and he even said they’ve chewed the flesh and left us with the bones, they went to IMF and came back with so many conditionalities. There are many issues but we don’t want to go there otherwise the main discussion we are all having, the advice we are giving to all Ghanaians may be received on partisan lines in that an NDC supporter can decide not to listen to the advice we are giving because we’ve said something against the former President and that is why President Akufo-Addo told the leadership of the various political parties to we hold onto the partisan politics for now so that we can come together and fight this pandemic.
“When all is said and done, we can go into our politics. We have seen that when the President addresses the nation, then he does a counter address or some sort and it looks like he is doing politics but we will keep our focus and solve this complex problem, we won’t go on that tangent, else we will all lose this fight,” he indicated.
Source: ABCNewsgh.com