‘What is Mahama coming to rescue?’ – Bawumia criticises NDC campaign ad
Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has shot down the NDC campaign premised on rescuing the country from what they describe as underdevelopment.
The NDC says it is on a “rescue mission” in the 2020 elections and its leaders such as party Chairman Samuel Ofosu Ampofo has echoed the slogan on several platforms.
However, Dr. Bawumia has indicated that it was rather the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government that saved the country from the mismanagement of the Mahama government in 2016.
Dr Bawumia maintained that the NPP has transformed Ghana and placed it on a developmental pedestal that does not require intervention from the NDC.
“The real rescue that happened, by the grace of God, was the election of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. We came to office and all the things that were going wrong, we have tried to right them,” he said on the Asaase FM’s Sunday Night Live on November 12.
Dr Bawumia insisted that the NPP government has “put everything back on course” and the NDC should not be given the chance to erode the gains achieved.
“They are talking about a rescue mission meanwhile God rescued as from them,” he reiterated.
To buttress his point, Dr Bawumia cited the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme which the Mahama government adopted.
In his opinion, “That was the real rescue mission and the price of mismanagement of the economy”.
For him, the current NPP government has ensured macroeconomic stability, teacher and nurses training allowance has been paid.
He said several other policies have been rolled out including Free SHS, One- District-One-Factory, and Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ).
“So, we have really rescued the nation from the mismanagement of John Mahama,” he insisted.
The opposition NDC has accused the NPP of creating a Highly Indebted Middle-Income Country (HIMC) after former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) programme he signed on after taking office in 2000.
But Dr. Bawumia explained that the IMF and World Bank have debunked any “danger of unsustainability of debt”.
Even though he acknowledged the Bank of Ghana (BoG) debt to GDP ratio of 71%, he pointed out that 4% of the 71% is due to the financial sector rescue of GHC 21billion.
He was of the view that another 2% is due to power purchase agreements that the NDC government signed with power producers and the country had to pay GHC 12billion for unconsumed power.
He added unexpected COVID -19 expenditure as another factor responsible for the ballooning debt.
In his opinion, the fundamentals of the economy are strong, considering a decline in inflation and interest rates.
He said the exchange rate has been stabilised better than any first-term government since 1992. According to him, depreciation in 2020 is also the lowest since 1992.
“If you have an economy that is in trouble, these fundamentals would be reading differently as they did when our economy was in trouble under the NDC,” he added.