Finance Minister Designate: Ato Forson’s appointment sensible- Franklin Cudjoe

Founding President and chief executive officer of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Franklin Cudjoe has lauded President John Dramani Mahama for his recent appointment.

The President has announced Dr.Cassiel Ato Baah Forson,Minister for Finance Designate, John Abdulai Jinapor, Minister for Energy Designate and Dominic Akuritinga Ayini – Attorney -General and Minister for Justice Designate as his first batch of appointments.

In a Facebook post, Mr.Cudjoe noted that “Hon. Ato Forson for Finance Minister. Sensible appointment. Thankfully, he is not an overhyped investment banker who would have wet dreams of some delusional $50bn century bond his predecessor entertained in spite of the odious debts he had accumulated. Worse, he was planning to mortgage our gold resources through very bad deals like Agyapa. Agyapa was horrible and kudos to IMANI and our cousins at ACEP for leading the charge to kill it. Whoever advised Agyapa must be lashed 38 times.”

He added that “Anyway, last April 2024, l had an opportunity to engage Ato Forson up close to discuss what must be done to prevent further damage to our jalopy economy. I had invited him to meet a small team of Ghanaian and British consultants the British Government recently engaged to design a modest new, £5m programme – the Financial and Economic Resilience in Ghana (FERG) programme – to complement existing work-streams, and those of other development partners, to address Ghana’s long-standing challenges with fiscal and macroeconomic instability.”

“The interaction was eye-opening and worth every second of the two-hour encounter. I was convinced that Hon.Ato Forson had earned the stripes to be a successful finance minister,” he revealed.

He concluded, “As deputy team leader of the mission, I will endorse the release of the £5m as soon as possible to help Ato Forson strengthen ministerial budget preparation to cut out waste and capacitate Ghana’s debt management office to slow down debt-happy finance ministers among many others.Good luck Ato.”

By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme