Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, expressed the view that it is too late for President Akufo-Addo to salvage the economy.

Mr Iddrisu argued that the ruling New Patriotic Party had spent the past seven years negatively impacting the nation's economy, and correcting these mistakes in just one fiscal year would be practically impossible.

He made the statement ahead of the presentation of the 2024 budget and economic plan by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

On Joy FM's Super Morning Show, the former Minority Leader stated that achieving such a feat would require a miracle. He urged Ghanaians to temper their expectations ahead of the budget reading.

“If you use seven years to create this distress how are you going to use one year to redeem? Practically impossible  and therefore your expectation should be one where too little too late, he simply has no time to redeem given the monumental damage they have done to our economic score card whether it’s inflation ending 2022 at more than 50%, today around 40%, interest rate unacceptably high, depreciation of the cedi,” he said.Mr Haruna Iddrisu expressed disappointment, stating that while he had hoped the budget would outline a path toward private sector-driven economic growth, indications of more revenue mobilization and new taxes suggest otherwise.

He urged Ghanaians to prepare for the challenges of the upcoming fiscal year.

He said, “We will reel under some extreme hardship. Poverty as reported by ISSER and many other international bodies including the world bank has increased and post covid, we’re not seeing the kind of economic interventions that will spur growths and therefore growth has stunted over the years since 2020 and it’s likely to remain same.”