After the sacking of UK Finance Minister(Chancellor), many anti-Ken Ofori-Atta have been calling for the resignation or dismissal of Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister of Ghana, as if the two individuals are serving the same Country with the same issues.
How does the sacking of UK Finance Minister got to do with Ghana’s Finance Minister? It has no correlation at all.
Clearly, the Conservative Party might have used Kwasi Kwarteng to save the job of the Prime Minister of UK.
There is no way Kwasi Kwarteng will have read the September Mini-budget without the approval of Liz Truss and her team of Ministers.
“Mr. Kwasi Kwarteng’s downfall was set in motion by the Mini-budget on 23rd September 2022 in which he announced £45billion in unfunded tax cuts”.
Meanwhile, the U-turn by Lizz Truss, the UK Prime Minister and the Conservative Party is to raise corporation tax from 19% to 25% next year April despite the UK Prime Minister and her Conservative Party promising not to do so in the Mini-budget.
It is very interesting to note that, the Conservative Party has now had 4 Finance Ministers(Chancellors) in the past 3 years and these are:
- Kwasi Kwarteng
- Nadhim Zahawi
- Rishi Sunak
- Sajid Javid
The next Finance Minister to be appointed by Lizz Truss will be the 7th Finance Minister appointed by the Conservative Party in the last 12 years.
I honestly think that, Kwasi Kwarteng was just used as the scapegoat by the UK Prime Minister after the backlash of the Mini-budget approved collectively by the Conservative Party.
Resignation or being sacked is something that is normal in UK body politics. So far, 11 UK Prime Ministers have resigned from office since the start of the 20th century, with 9 belonging to the Conservative Party and the other 2 from the Labour Party.
9 UK Prime Ministers Who Resigned (from the Conservative Party)
- Neville Chamberlain
- Winston Churchill
- Anthony Eden
- Harold Macmillan
- Margaret Thatcher
- John Major
- David Cameron
- Theresa May
- Boris Johnson
2 UK Prime Ministers Who Resigned(from the Labour Party)
- Tony Blair
- Gordon Brown
To me, it does not make sense to demand that Ken Ofori-Atta should resign because of UK Kwasi Kwarteng who was only in office for just 38 days.
How do you compare and justify the track record of Ken Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister for almost 6 to that of Kwasi Kwarteng who lasted for only 38 days.
Ken Ofori-Atta perhaps is the only Finance Minister since Independence who has been able to achieved a single digit inflation for 4 consecutive years:
2018——7.81%
2019—– 7.14%
2020——9.89%
2021——-9.99%
Why must we have to use the inflation rate of 2022 to judge the performance of Ken Ofori-Atta out of the inflation rates for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021?
Is Ken Ofori-Atta the only person managing the affairs of the economy? Certainly not.
Is Ken Ofori-Atta the only member of Cabinet? Certainly not.
Is Ken Ofori-Atta the only member or leader of the Economic Management Team of the Government? Certainly not.
Is Ken Ofori-Atta the Bank of Ghana? Certainly not.
Pushing all the blame on Ken Ofori-Atta and using him as an escape goat is completely unwise.
We share the glory and the shame together as a Party and Government.
NDC kept faith with their Finance Ministers when they took Ghana to the IMF for 10 solid times.
John Agyekum Kufuor kept faith with his Finance Minister when he took Ghana to the IMF under the HIPC Programme.
So what is the problem if Akufo-Addo keep faith with his Finance Minister after taking Ghana to the IMF?
