Ranking Member on Parliament’s Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, says President Akufo-Addo’s posturing during his address on the state of the economy was that of an angry man.

According to him, while it is not clear who the President was angry at, it signaled the President was not ready to solve the economic challenges the country is bedeviled with.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Dr. Ato Forson noted that the President had done a poor job at rallying Ghanaians to support him during these challenging times.

“Unfortunately, the President waited too long to address the nation, and even when he decided to address the nation, his posturing alone wasn’t good enough. Watching the President, I saw someone who’s angry, but I did not see someone who’s ready to solve a problem. The body language is everything so I was more interested in his body language and I saw an angry man,” he said.

He added “Your people are in crisis, their livelihood is at stake. People are struggling to have three square meals a day; they’re looking up to you as the President. You don’t come threatening them because some of them are rumour mongering.

“You come obviously by talking to them in a way that they can buy your message. I think whoever wrote that speech, if it’s himself he did a very poor job, if it’s another person, whoever did that job must go because actually the people of Ghana were waiting for that master stroke but it did not come out as such.”

He noted that if the President’s address had announced immediate actions being taken to curb the fiscal issues, including some alleviation plans to help support the most vulnerable in society, he would have earned the support of Ghanaians instead of their ire and ridicule.

 “Let me tell you something, Evans, if the President had come and had announced to the people of Ghana to say ‘yes, because of the crisis A, B, C and D, I’m relieving 40 of my ministers or 30 of my ministers’ it’s a big signal. It tells the people of Ghana that this man means business.

“It calms the nerves of everyone. Quantify it and say that I’m making savings of ABCD and I’m going to put these savings into, say LEAP to support the elderly. The people of Ghana want to see things like this,” he said.