Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, has slammed the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) for its mishandling of the funds acquired by the previous government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He says rather than a misfortune, the pandemic came as a blessing to the State, considering the amount of revenue that came into the country as a result of the COVID.
According to him, President Mahama, during his Harvard University lecture, had indicated that although the pandemic affected world economies when it emerged, Ghana’s economy should have boomed due to the gains that came with it.
Speaking on the BigIssue segment on the NewDay morning show on Monday, May 18, 2026, Mr. Tameklo listed some of the benefits that came with the pandemic, for which he says made it a blessing, rather than a misfortune to the nation.
“Without doubt, Covid definitely had an impact on economies globally. But the Ghanaian economy was an outlier in the sense that Covid alone brought to this economy GHC21 billion,” he stated.
The NPA boss further stated that an additional “one billion credit facility” was acquired, adding that “what is even more important is that the World Bank alone gave us US$630 million.”
“Beyond that, we got printed funds into the economy by the Bank of Ghana. So, if you put all of this together, COVID actually became a blessing to the Ghanaian economy because we got more money,” he maintained.
However, the Director of Legal Affairs for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) held that how the sum was expended is the question Ghanaians need to be concerned about.
He cited an instance where an executive of the then party in power confessed to how the funds were distributed amongst party faithful in the lead-up to the 2024 general elections.
He said the wanton dissipation of the funds led to a budget deficit for the state, the reason Ghana had to return to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) right after exiting the programme.
“But what happened to the COVID funds is wha we should be concerned about. We saw the NPP Regional Vice or so in the Northern region, Madam Felicia Tettey, making a point, how COVID funds were shared like groundnuts, among NPP regional, national executives and parliamentary candidates towards the 2020 election.
“And so we concluded the 2020 election with a budget deficit of 15 per cent and over. And so when you have that kind of situation, the economy is definitely going to suffer,” he explained.
Mr. Tameklo argued that the development makes it prudent for the government to have the Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) from the IMF after exiting the Bretton Woods Institution’s 3-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF).
