The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Abdul-Malik Kweku Baako, has taken Casiel Ato-Forson to shreds for peddling falsehoods in using fictitious figures to counter what Vice President Dr. Bawumia used in his delivery during the Town Hall Meeting organized by the Economic Management Team.
Speaking on JoyNews’ flagship programme Newsfile, the veteran journalist, Kweku Baako pointed out to the fact that Ato-Forson, the former Deputy Finance Minister under John Mahama and the current ranking member on the Finance Committee of Parliament, was disingenuous in the figures he claimed was found on the website of the Ministry for Finance and used same to create the impression that it represented the actual non-rebased deficit figure of 2016.
Ato-Forson indicated that on the website of the Ministry for Finance, the non-rebased deficit figure for the fiscal year of 2016 was 7.8%. The 7.8% quoted figure is even wrong because the website has 8.7% but not 7.8% as Ato-Forson claimed.
“The fact of the matter, however, is that the figure he used was a provisional outturn 2016 deficit figure. The actual (not provisional) non-rebased fiscal deficit figure for 2016 is clearly provided for in the mid-year budget of 2017 as well as 2018 and 2019 budgets. Running through these budgets, the figure mentioned is 9.3%, and this is in conformity to what Dr. Bawumia, the Vice President said” Mr. Baako said.
According to Mr. Baako, the NDC MP engaged in lies in his inglorious attempts to score political points out of the figures he used.
Fifi Kwetey, the NDC representative on the programme also found it difficult trying to puncture holes in the figures the Vice President had used in his presentation, contrary to the noise the party members were making that Dr. Bawumia had used ‘fake’ figures to ferry his message across.
Source: BestNewsGH.com
