Nana Addo - ‘Ghana At High Risk..’ Mahama has borrowed GH¢200 billion in seven years compared to NPP's GH¢20 billion in eight years

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has stated that Ghana is at a high risk of debt distress, adding that the country’s debt stock has hit some GH¢99.0 billion currently from GH¢9.5 billion in 2008. Nana Addo, who spoke to the media yesterday in Accra on the actual state of the economy, said in dollar terms, the NDC government had borrowed some US$37 billion within seven years, adding that government had borrowed about five times the amount borrowed by Nkrumah and Kufuor put together. “President Kwame Nkrumah borrowed the equivalent of some $2.5 billion between 1957 and 1966 and President Kufuor borrowed some $5 billion between 2001 and 2008. “President Mahama, in his 2012 manifesto, promised the people of Ghana that he would achieve an average GDP growth rate of 8 percent per annum, single digit inflation, an overall budget deficit of 5 percent of GDP and introduce economic policies that would put our average per capita income at $2,300 by 2017.”

According to him, President John Mahama, in his recent State of the Nation Address, paid scant attention to the country’s economy. “He told us about one private factory he had inaugurated in Accra and two institutions he hopes will bear fruit in the future. These are a yet-to-be-established EXIM Bank and a Ghana Infrastructure Fund that is yet to take off. He then talked about a specific microfinance company that has caused havoc in the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Northern regions through a pyramid scheme, and true to form the President found someone else to blame, this time the Bank of Ghana (BoG).

It is obvious that the President did not want to tell us the true state of the Ghanaian economy.” Flimsy stories He stated that factual account stories did not interest the President because if they did, he would have told Ghanaians that economic growth for 2016 was projected by the budget at 4.1 percent, but by the IMF at 3.5 percent, average GDP per capita income currently stood at $1,342 far from the $2,300 he promised four years ago. . “He would have told us that the rate of inflation stands today at 19.1 percent and bank lending rates are as high as 33 percent. “He could not tell those businesses that are relocating to Cote d’Ivoire that they should continue to engage in Ghana if they were “smart”, as he had policies in place that would enable their businesses to prosper here in Ghana.”

He stated that Ghanaians were suffering today because reckless borrowing by an incompetent government had led to unsustainable debt levels which had effectively closed the fiscal space for capital investments. “Reckless borrowing by the Mahama government has led us to a debt stock that is 73 percent of GDP, which is beyond the threshold of debt sustainability…Not surprisingly; we are now being charged interest rates that would keep generations of Ghanaians impoverished.

“Ghana is where it is today because the introduction of amateurish and panic measure financial policies has destroyed confidence in the economy. Ghana is where it is today because of the systematic plundering of the public purse by corrupt officials which has turned our country into a devastated economic landscape.” The NPP flagbearer noted that following the discovery of oil, Ghanaians rightly expected more. However, the NDC government has had more in terms of resources than all other governments since Ghana’s independence. “In loans and taxes alone, the government had GH¢200 billion in the last seven years. This compares with GH¢20 billion for the NPP’s eight years in office. Notwithstanding this monumental access to resources, the economy is clearly in crisis.”