Ghana’s longest serving Finance Minister, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, has stated that he mostly agrees with Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s assessment of the economy.
In a lecture delivered in May at the Distinguished Speaker Series organised by the Central University College in Accra, Dr. Bawumia painted a very gloomy picture of the Ghanaian economy, stressing that a bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was inevitable if the government’s management of the economy did not improve.
“I’ll like to repeat without exaggeration that the Ghanaian economy is in a crisis,” he said; pointing to high inflation, double-digit budget deficit, depreciation of the cedi and the general lack of growth in the economy. GDP growth, according to him, had declined from 9.4 per cent in 2011 to just 3.4 per cent in 2013.
Prof. Botchwey, who on Tuesday evening mounted the podium to deliver a lecture as the third speaker in the Distinguished Speaker Series, said he did not plan to dispute the claims made by Dr. Bawumia.
“I offer no rebuttals. I do agree with much of what he said,” he said.
Botchwey holds an LL.B. from the University of Ghana, a LL.M from Yale Law School, and a doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School.
He taught at the University of Zambia, the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the University of Ghana.
