The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has advised former President John Dramani Mahama to tell Ghanaians about his true record while in power.
According to the party, the records of the former President’s administration were full of corruption and deceit, as he put the economy in “freefall” after reckless expenditure in excess of some GH¢12 billion in pursuit of election victory in 2012.
The General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu who said this yesterday at a press conference in Accra, said,the 2020 flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was out of touch with post-COVID-19 governance.
He was reacting to the former President’s recent assertion that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, was hiding behind COVID-19 to overspend.
“Much as John Mahama seeks re-election on a campaign platform of ‘going back’ to the IMF, he attempts to confuse history by painting a rosy picture of his disastrous management of the Ghanaian economy between 2012 and 2016.
His economy, under Seth Terkper, never recovered, leading to unheard of taxation measures on condoms and cutlasses,” Mr Boadu said.
He added that, the economic mismanagement, led by the former President, was marked by rising inflation and downward growth, with growth declining steeply from 14 per cent in 2011 to 3.9 per cent in 2016.
“This steep decline was in normal ‘bust and boom’ times, according to John Mahama. The worst economic crisis former President Mahama ever faced was falling commodity prices, which according to his boom and bust analysis, is normal for every administration. Yet, he could not manage to keep the economy on an even keel,” he said.
Mr Boadu said, all economic modeling worldwide was premised on COVID-19 and the ability to preserve lives and then livelihoods, as President Akufo-Addo succinctly put it for the world to note and follow.
“Moreover, the Akufo-Addo administration has faced the worst ever international crisis in COVID-19, a scourge that has depreciated the worldwide economy and driven debt up generally.
The Former President’s lack of understanding of the COVID-19 economy is positively dangerous for Ghana because it badly skews his feeble attempts at analysis of our current economic situation.
“The IMF, to which he trumpets we should go to, has certified our economy as one of the fastest growing in terms of COVID-19 economic rebound,” the General Secretary said.
He said although the Former President set-up a COVID-19 management advisory team, they were unable to announce strategies in tackling the pandemic which had contributed to the challenge of running Ghana’s economy.
Mr Boadu believed National Democratic Congress(NDC) would have messed up if they were in government during the season of COVID-19.
“In that light, what would NDC have done differently? What and where are their alternatives? Alternative financial plan and alternative COVID-19 management plan?.They have no plan because the NDC do not realise and accept that COVID-19 has a fundamental impact on the economy,” he said.
“What is former President Mahama’s approach to securing vaccines? What is his alternative to keeping schools open, which he and his party criticised vehemently barely a year ago? What is the Mahama alternative to the measures in the cocoa sector that have yielded an all record cocoa bean output?
“Indeed, what is John Mahama’s alternative to anything, apart from the IMF? If you are the alternative, then spell out your alternatives to the Ghanaian people now,” he said.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN