Former President John Dramani Mahama has accused the Akufo-Addo administration of lacking ideas on how to grow the economy.
Mr Mahama indicated that all the promises President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave to Ghanaians prior to becoming the Head of State have not be achieved.
In a presentation he made titled “Ghana at Crossroad” on Monday May 2, the 2020 presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) said “A government bereft of ideas has resorted to incarcerations of critical voices, name-calling of citizens and unfair categorization of the labour force and huge numbers of unemployed youth as lazy and underserving. Worst of all, government has been using chaotic shouts and insincere critical analyses, laden with dubious comparison and outright untruths to manage the narrative .
“On the economic front, Nana AKufo Addo and the NPP pledged to transform Ghana within 18 months, grow our economy at double digit, reduce borrowing, ensure fiscal discipline, bring down the cost of living, lower taxes and protect the public purse. They promised also to move Ghana from taxation to production.
” In effect, none of these has been achieved. Instead, Ghanaians have been subjected to excruciating hardship and deprivation, resulting directly from the mismanagement of the economy by a government that lacks the humility to accept responsibility and the capacity to appropriately diagnose the root causes of the challenges that have brought us here.”
Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the outbreak of the coronavirus disturbed the economic gains made by his administration.
He has expressed optimism that the economy will pick up again.
Speaking at the May Day celebration on Sunday, he said “As I indicated at Kwahu-Nkwatia, Ghana will, again, as happened in my first term, be a shining example to the rest of the world. We are definitely on the right path, as outlined in the one hundred-billion-cedi (GH¢100 billion) Ghana CARES ‘Obaatan Pa’ Programme.
“Government’s historic ten-billion-cedi (GH¢10 billion) YouStart Programme, to encourage youth entrepreneurship, will be launched by June. Together, they will help transform, revitalise and modernise the economy to enable it return to high and sustained growth over the next two (2) years. We are doing so with greater urgency to create job opportunities in different sectors of the economy. We have done it before, and we will do it again.
“I shall be more than ready to share the progress with you a year on.
“Just as we have worked together to reduce significantly the impact of COVID-19 on lives and livelihoods; and just as we worked together to grow the economy from the 3.4% I inherited in 2016, to an average annual growth rate of 7% in my first term, before the pandemic struck, making us one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
“So I remain upbeat and optimistic that working together, in all sincerity and transparency, we, the Social Partners, i.e., Government, Organised Labour and the Business Community, can help sustain the rebound of the economy, and, thereby, help improve the living standards of all Ghanaians.
“In all of this, we must not lose sight of our overarching vision, which is to build a Ghana Beyond Aid. I remain confident that we can free ourselves from a mindset of dependence, aid, charity and handouts, and build a self-reliant economy which will mobilise the immense resources of Ghana, material and human, with women and youth in the forefront, to resolve Ghana’s problems, and deliver a decent, dignified standard of living to the working people of our country.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana