Richard Ahiagbah, NPP Communications Director
The Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has described the opposition NDC’s John Mahama as a leader “having no message” of hope capable of turning around the fortunes of Ghana, if he wins the 2024 general elections.
He stressed that the NPP government, under leadership of President Akufo-Addo, is on course to restoring the country’s economic stability and growth that existed before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing the media at the NPP’s headquarters in Accra yesterday, Mr Ahiagbah said the government’s Post COVID-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG) is a solid blueprint that is ushering the country out of the economic setback the people of Ghana have had to endure in the last 12 months.
NDC’s performance
Before he outlined the recovery plans of the Akufo-Addo administration, he urged Ghanaians to continue reposing trust in the NPP to work within its budget expenditure and not borrow to engage in activities beyond a healthy threshold.
Explaining why the electorate should keep trusting the NPP to deliver a rebound, he accused the opposition NDC of engaging in acts of “specialised misinformation on economic data,” saying such mischief is only calculated to mire an otherwise healthy IMF programme.
He described that attitude as part of the NDC’s desperate bid to recapture power in the 2024 general elections.
“The NDC is only interested in misinforming Ghanaians on economic data, and consistently drumming it. It is the NDC’s strategy. Unfortunately, it does not cover for their lack of policy ideas. The NPP is making the difficult decisions to restore this economy for the benefit of all Ghanaians. Records point to the fact that from 2017, 2018, 2019, NPP has not borrowed within its government expenditure or budget. Throughout these periods, there was fiscal surplus. The government therefore did not see the need to request supplementary funds for its activities,” he said.
GDP measure
Mr Ahiagbah pointed out that “on the larger economy, which is measured in terms of GDP, the NDC supervised a perpetual decline from 2013 to 2016.
“In 2013, GDP was 7.3%; in 2014 it was 4%; in 2015 it was 3.9% and in 2016 it was 3.7%. In terms of percentage changes in the GPD, the economy deteriorated by 45.2% in 2014 compared to 2013 growth. Similarly, the economy decreased by 2.5% in 2015 and 5.12% in 2016,” he outlined.
He stated that in the agriculture, industry and services sectors, particularly, the NDC’s performance was even worst. He noted that from 2013, real sector growth plummeted significantly across all sectors, adding that in 2014 all the sectors grew at a negative rate using 2013 performance as a base.
The NPP Communications Director recalled that Mahama’s poor performance was against the NDC inheriting an economy that had discovered oil in commercial quantities and began production in 2010.
This, he noted, shot Ghana’s GDP to 14% in 2011 and subsequently all that growth momentum was vanquished by the NDC through incompetency.
NPP’s performance
The NPP’s Director of Communications noted that available data show that the “NPP turned around the contracting economy it inherited from the NDC in 2017 to date”.
“On GDP, 2017 GDP grew at 8.1 percent compared to 3.7 percent in 2016, 2018 GDP grew by 6.3%, 2019 GDP grew by 6.5% and 2020 GDP grew by 0.5%. In the real rector, the industry recorded its highest growth of 16.7% in 2017, with Agriculture at 8.4%, and the Services sectors at 4.3%. Industry grew from a mournful negative 0.5% in 2016 to 16.7 percent in 2017 and Services grew from 2.8% in 2016 to an appreciable 4.3% in 2017.
“The agric sector also grew from a dismal 2.7% in 2016 to 8.4% in 2017. Friends from the media, this data we just reviewed imply that the vulnerable in our society, the poor, indeed, the vast majority of Ghanaians fared much better under NPP in 2017. Data is sacred,” Mr Ahiagbah added.
Economic rebound
The NPP Communications Director assured that the Post Covid-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG) would address the economic challenges of this country through fiscal consolidation, get treatment, and structural reform.
He revealed that the Bank of Ghana, for instance, had responded with a raft of monetary policy measures, including the bi-weekly FX forward auction, and the BDC forex auction which has helped subdue the pressure on the spot FX market.
“This is intended to complement the monetary policies which have been activated, including the fact that Government has announced Expenditure-led measures such as a 30% cut in discretionary expenditures, a moratorium on the new creation of government units, a freeze on government travels, 30 percent cut in salaries of the executive and political appointees, among others,” he added.
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