The Minority Caucus in Parliament has described President John Dramani Mahama’s second State of the Nation Address (SONA), delivered on Friday, as mere rhetoric.
Addressing the media after the SONA, the Minority Leader, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, said the President’s address failed to highlight challenges in key sectors of the economy, including cocoa, energy and mining.
According to him, the President did not explain the reduction in the producer price of cocoa.
He argued that the decline in world cocoa prices, as suggested by the Majority, did not justify lowering the local producer price.
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macroeconomic stability, you can achieve stability on paper for the IMF and the World Bank, but the real stability is when Ghanaian people go to the market and experience lower prices of foodstuffs. When they are complaining, you cannot use paper inflation to claim credit and ask us to applaud you,” he added.
“We are all aware that when the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was in opposition, they promised that upon assumption of office, the minimum price they would pay for cocoa would be GH¢6,000. Today, they have rather reduced the price, thereby making the poor cocoa farmer worse off,” he said.
Mr Afenyo-Markin further alleged that the introduction of a GH¢1 energy sector reform levy and the increase in electricity tariffs were placing an additional burden on citizens.
He dismissed the President’s assertion that current challenges in the energy and other sectors were inherited.
The Minority Leader stressed that stable electricity supply was crucial to achieving the government’s proposed 24-hour economy policy, stating that industries would depend on reliable power to operate effectively under the policy.
While acknowledging what he described as the stabilisation of macroeconomic indicators, including inflation, Mr Afenyo-Markin maintained that the improvements had not translated into better living conditions for Ghanaians.
“The President talks about inflation having come down. Are we going to eat inflation? What is inflation on paper when it has no effect in the pocket of the ordinary Ghanaian?” he asked.
He credited the former Vice-President and the NPP’s 2028 presidential candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, for the economic stabilisation measures currently being implemented.
The Minority Leader said “On Monday, we are going to bring to the attention of the country our comprehensive submission on the true state of the economy and the true state of the nation.”
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON TETTEY
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