NDC takes power only to destroy gains — John Boadu
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has advised Ghanaians to be cautious about the trend in the Fourth Republic where the National Democratic Congress (NDC) takes power only to destroy socio-economic gains chalked up by the NPP.
He argued that in 2001, the Kufuor Administration which inherited a tattered economy from the Rawlings Administration left a strong resilient one only to be destroyed again by the John Mahama government.
The General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu, who recounted the scenarios, stated this at a press conference in response to some claims made by NDC in its recent Town Hall meeting.
Mismanaged economy
He added that prior to the 2000 election, the then NDC had mismanaged the economy, becoming a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) but was not courageous to admit it though it was an IMF programme in 2000.
“It took President Kufuor to have the bulk of Ghana’s debt written off and get Ghana out of the IMF programme. Not only that, NPP, through the focused operations of GNPC, made Ghana an oil rich nation but left office before a single barrel of Jubilee oil could be produced. Also, the NPP under President Kufuor left office with Ghana’s first credit rating taking us to B+,” he added.
Ghana’s rating
He noted that after eight years of NDC economic management, Ghana’s rating went down from B+ to B- under former President Mahama, however after 20 months of NPP under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the country has been upgraded from B- to B, a move that led to the oversubscription of Eurobond issue in multiples of seven at the lowest coupon rate and longer maturity Ghana had ever had.
Mr Boadu expressed delight that Ghanaians assessed the NPP with a higher benchmark than the NDC and urged voters not to think that the NDC was a credible alternative.
He said President Mahama, prior to the 2012 Election, spent an additional GH¢4 billion that was not budgeted for all in his desperate attempt to win that election and mentioned the RLG laptops that were prepaid but the students never got them as some of the expenditure.
He added that in 2016, President Mahama spent an additional GH¢7 billion presumably on capital expenditure that was not budgeted for yet was spent on costly infrastructure, and many of those with inflated price tags could neither be seen today nor were they even priority projects for the country.
GDP growth
Mr Boadu said President Mahama inherited the 2011 real GDP growth of over 14 per cent but could not even maintain it and rather superintended over its decline to 3.4 per cent by end of 2016, the largest fall ever in twenty years.
“That GH¢7 billion extra money spent on infrastructure in 2016, the NPP is calling on John Mahama and his NDC to show us what they did with it and we will show them that we are able to do three times more with even a smaller amount,” he challenged.