Africa-Press – Ghana. Ghana’s finance minister, Kenneth Ofori-Atta, has escaped a no-confidence vote in parliament after ruling party lawmakers withdrew from a vote on how he handled the country’s economic crisis.
The government of President Nana Akufo-Addo is currently under pressure as it negotiates a $3 billion bailout loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
According to Reuters, opposition lawmakers in parliament – split between the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) – sought to oust the finance minister over a series of allegations. According to the Speaker of the Chamber, Alban Bagbin, the opposition minority voted in favor of censorship, (136 votes), which means that it did not reach the two-thirds majority necessary to overthrow the minister. Most NPP lawmakers had left before the vote.
President Akufo-Addo recently urged Ghanaians to support his efforts to manage the crisis as inflation reached 40% and the national currency, the cedi, depreciated by more than 50% against the dollar.
Ghana is a major cocoa and gold producer and has oil and gas reserves, but debt service payments have soared.
Opposition lawmakers questioned the finance minister over allegations of misappropriation of public funds and “alarming incompetence and ineptitude that led to the collapse of the economy”.
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