The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has refuted suggestions that the John Mahama administration left behind an economic mess when it lost power to President Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, stated during his presentation of the budget for the first quarter of 2021 in Parliament yesterday that Mahama’s administration left Ghana’s economy in a mess.
He stated that “I recall how in 2014, according to a Bloomberg annual table, the cedi was the worst-performing currency in the entire world, only managing to perform better than war-torn Ukraine’s Hryvnia. Indeed, in dollar terms, the former President took an economy that was 64 billion dollars in 2013 and shrunk it down to 55 billion dollars in 2016. This means that after 4 years in office, the Mahama administration managed to achieve an unenviable record of reducing the Ghanaian economy by nearly 10 Billion US.”
But the NDC refuted these claims.
Speaking at a press conference following the presentation, the National Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi stated that the NPP has persistently lied to the people of Ghana and the world that they inherited an economic crisis from the NDC government in 2017.
In setting the record straight, the Communications Officer argued that in the area of energy, apart from solving dumsor, the NDC also set up a Fund to deal with the sector’s debts.
“The NDC set up and bequeathed to the Akufo Addo-government the ESLA Fund to deal with legacy debts that had bedevilled the energy sector for decades. This Fund has yielded averagely GHS3 billion yearly since the NPP took office in 2017. Yet, the NPP has persistently lied that they inherited an economic mess.”
He added that the NPP inherited the EXIMBANK from John Mahama’s administration and currently use the same bank to fund their flagship One District One Factory (1D1F) programme.
He appealed to Ghanaians to come out on December 7, 2020, and vote massively for “the Nation Builder, John Mahama, to recuse this country and restore us back to the path of growth, development, and true progress.”