A stalwart of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has asked government to own up to its responsibility for the current economic crisis.

Dr. Arthur Kennedy said government cannot continue to blame the economic woes on the twin problems of Russia-Ukraine war and the Covid-19 pandemic.

He explained that although these two occurrences contributed to the country’s economic downfall, government must come clean for its failure to effectively manage the economy.

“I think that this whole thing started on a wrong foot. I think that the talk that Covid and the Ukraine war is responsible for the problems we are having, it is true to some extent, but it will help if the government were to say we had good intentions, we did our best, we thought these things will work but some of the things we said were going to work have not worked so we share some of the responsibilities for where we are,” he said on Newsfile, Saturday.

“When you do that then people’s minds and hearts will be opened,” he added.

Reacting to the government’s IMF economic programme, he called for a national consensus rather than any partisan stance.

“It is important to build a national consensus around this programme so that all of us will support it even when government’s change.”

Government is expected to reach a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund by Tuesday, December 13, 2022.

A Staff-Level agreement will pave way for the Board of the Fund to negotiate and probably approve a programme for the country.

The government also begun restructuring the country’s debt from Monday December 5, 2022, a major step in reaching a deal with the IMF to start a programme. The Debt Exchange Programme started with domestic debt.