Secret of success... Our acts unique – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the successes chalked up by the government in its first year in office are ample proof that doing things differently achieves positive results.

He said the government had inherited an economy that was in distress, choked by debt and with macroeconomic fundamentals in disarray, for which reason things had to be done differently.

“We had to do things differently and those were my marching orders to all members of the government,” he said

Addressing a media engagement on his first year in office, the President said the focus of the administration was to rapidly grow and expand the economy, adding that that could only happen when the fundamentals were in place.

“The Economic Management Team has risen to the challenge and demonstrated that doing things differently achieves positive results,” he added.

Sole-sourcing problematic

The President recalled that throughout the 2016 electioneering, he had maintained that part of the reason for the difficulties with the economy was the sole sourcing of procurement by the government.

The economists in his administration, he said, set to work to deal with the challenges with macroeconomic fundamentals and find imaginative ways to resolve the oppressive debt situation.

“I am glad to report that the hard work on that front is yielding positive results. Macroeconomic fundamentals have seen improvement through improved fiscal and monetary discipline. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth has rebounded, recording growth of 9.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2017, against the 3.5 per cent figure for the same period of 2016.

“Latest information indicates that inflation is 11.8 per cent, down from 15.6 per cent at the end of December 2016,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo said due to the prudent management of the economy, the debt situation had improved, with the annual average rate of debt accumulation of 36 per cent in recent years declining to about 13.6 per cent as of September 2017.

As a result, he said, the public debt stock as a ratio of GDP was 68.3 per cent, against the annual target of 71 per cent for 2017 and end 2016 actual figure of 73.1 per cent.

A response to ex-President Mahama

In an apparent response to a recent statement made by former President John Dramani Mahama on the payment of money owed contractors, the President said: “I am being urged to pay contractors. I am paying them. In 2017, nearly GH¢1 billion (GoG - GH¢300,400,156.75; Road Fund - GH¢664,091,476.88) of the GH¢1.6 billion owed road contractors was cleared. In January this year we have disbursed GH¢125 million out of the remainder of GH¢600 million to the contractors.”

The government, he said, had paid GH¢826 million of the GH¢1.2 billion loan contracted by the previous administration, for which the Road Fund was used as collateral.

“It is important to note that all these debts were accrued under the previous administration. I will also point out that much of the statutory arrears that we met have been cleared; that is, debts owed the NHIS, the District Assemblies Common Fund and the GETFund,” he said.

President Nana Akufo-Addo said the salary arrears that were paid to teachers last week, to the tune of GH¢14 million, had accrued from 2013 to 2016.

“The regimen we have in place now is to pay government bills as they come due and not accrue arrears. We are resisting the temptation to award contracts when funds are not available to pay for the certificates as they come up. Those who conduct business with the government will find that things are being done differently,” he stated.

Arrears from former government cleared

The President revealed further that the government had to subject GHc11 billion of arrears bequeathed it in 2017 by the Mahama administration to a process of audit review and validation.

“The Audit Service has certified payments to the tune of GH¢5.5 billion and rejected about GH¢5.7 billion, representing potential savings of 51 per cent on these outstanding commitments. This shows the validity of our criticism that so many of the contracts awarded in the Mahama era were inflated,” he said.

The President said he had promised to protect the public purse, adding: “I am doing just that. Those who have done honest work and at honest rates for the government will get paid and paid on time, so their profits do not get swallowed up in bank interests and thereby threaten the collapse of their businesses.”

According to him, for the first time in a long while, the government had been able to give better budgetary support to constitutionally mandated institutions responsible for holding the government accountable, such as the Auditor General, Parliament, the Judiciary, the Ministry of Justice, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and the Ghana Police Service.

With improving macroeconomic fundamentals, President Nana Akufo-Addo said, the government had been able to transfer some GH¢3.1 billion of Tier 2 pension funds into the custodial accounts of the pension schemes of the labour unions, funds that had been outstanding for six years and about which the labour unions had been loudly complaining.