A legislator on the Minority side has charged President Nana Akufo-Addo to admit the economy of Ghana is in crisis rather than labelling it as a mere difficulty.

Reacting to what President Akufo-Addo told a Ghanaian community in New York, USA Monday, Rockson Dafeamekpor believes the President’s sugar-coated his description of the Ghanaian economy.

“It has moved beyond mere difficulties to a crisis,” the South Dayi constituency representative stated.

The President in his speech, however, attributed the “difficulties” in the system to the “dramatic increase in crude oil prices” and the strengthening of the US dollar.

“We have to approach the foreign exchange matter medium to long-term, by expanding our supply base, that’s not a crisis…they’re difficulties the system would be able to accommodate…” he said.

Reacting to these comments, however, Mr Dafeamekpor said the ‘difficulties’ tag is not accurate. “We are rather in crisis,” he told Kojo Yankson on the AM Show on the Joy News channel Tuesday.

The MP explained the challenges that have met the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) implementation of the free Senior High School policy and the hike in tertiary fees and as well as other sectors including fuel prices, can only be described as a crisis.

However, Sekondi MP, Andrews Agyapa Mercer, who was also on the show noted that President Akufo-Addo should be cut some slack, for admitting the difficulties in the system instead of insisting they amount to a crisis.

Commenting on the banking crisis, Mr Mercer noted that the job losses could have been prevented if the erstwhile John Mahama government had acted fast at the time the banks began facing difficulties, instead of the NPP government having to deal with the situation after assuming power.

He also lauded the government on some macroeconomic figures stating that fiscal deficit, for instance, was reduced to 5.9% of GDP in 2017 from 9.3% in 2016.