By Ghana News

Copyright ghanamma

President John Dramani Mahama has acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly derailed Ghana’s economic progress, particularly in poverty reduction efforts.

Speaking at a side event dubbed Accra Reset during the ongoing United Nations General Assembly, the President noted that the pandemic reversed nearly two decades of progress in alleviating poverty.

“The COVID-19 pandemic erased two decades of poverty reduction in less than two years,” President Mahama was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster, GTV, on its official Facebook page.

The remarks have drawn wide attention, given that in the years following the pandemic, the then-opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) rejected repeated claims by the Akufo-Addo administration that the global health crisis was largely responsible for Ghana’s economic slump between 2020 and 2022.

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Commentators say the President’s admission appears to validate the position of the previous government, which consistently argued that the pandemic’s unprecedented disruption had severely affected Ghana’s economy.

COVID-19, which emerged in late 2019, devastated global economies, leading to job losses, supply chain disruptions and rising costs of living across both developed and developing nations.

Ghana, like many others, struggled to shield vulnerable households from the economic fallout.

President Mahama’s comments, observers note, mark a significant shift in political discourse surrounding Ghana’s post-pandemic economic recovery.

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