General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, says the Akufo-Addo-led government has no excuse for the fiscal challenges the country is currently saddled with.

According to him, this government has been the luckiest in terms of resources and should not be battling with the kind of economic challenges it’s currently facing despite the Covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine war.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he said, “We’re talking about the government that has been the luckiest government in terms of resources. The amount of resources that have come into the hands of this government is absolutely unprecedented.

“Covid alone gave this government so much money, in fact, imagine this that between 2009to 2016, the total money that we borrowed, domestic and international, if you put it together will be about 110 billion because when we came in at the time it was about 10 billion and the time we were leaving it was 120 billion, so 110 billion.

“And imagine that just in one year a government is having access to in the region of 20 to 30 billion just for Covid alone. That’s about one-fifth of the totality of the debt that one government had for eight years, you had that in one year, and you still finish that year with almost 16% deficit.”

Fifi Kwetey maintains that the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war are not to blame for the current hardship in the country.

He has blamed poor fiscal management and bad government policies for the challenges.

According to him, taking into consideration all the resources this government has enjoyed, the ballooning budget deficit and fiscal challenges is “criminal”.

“If you have over 20 billion cedis available to you just within one year and in that year you were getting access to this money also somewhere around July/August, almost like five months to go and you still manage to leave an unprecedented 16%, it’s criminal.

“So what are we talking about? They have no excuse. They’ve had the greatest resource envelope in our history and still have left the most calamitous, the most disastrous economy in our history. There’s no excuse at all for them,” he said.