Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and northern Regional Minister, Saeed Salifu after yesterday’s session
Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has mocked the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for renting fake spare parts dealers to protest against the Akufo-Addo administration for failing to lessen their plight.
Dr. Bawumia indicated that the protests came from the fake spare parts dealers association that the NDC formed, adding “but thankfully the real spare parts dealers association has rejected their claims and exposed them as fake spare parts dealers.”
Speaking at the 4th National Policy Summit in Tamale yesterday, the Vice-President said that the government has abolished import duties on spare parts, a move that has been hailed by the dealers.
“The real spare parts dealers who exposed the NDC’s rented spare parts dealers thanked the government for helping their businesses.”
Last week, there was a report that the Spare Parts Dealers Association of Ghana had expressed deep regret to former President John Mahama for labelling him ‘incompetent’ and begged him for forgiveness.
According to the Vice-President, the report was orchestrated by the opposition NDC to sow seeds of discord among the hard-working spare parts dealers so that they would attack the government.
According to reports, the spare parts dealers indicated that they would not hesitate at any point in time to go on their knees to render an unqualified apology to former President Mahama for levelling allegations against him.
The report claimed in the lead to the 2016 elections the association contributed GH?200,000 to the NPP led by Akufo-Addo who has now imposed untold hardship on them.
According to them, increases in taxes, high import charges and the inability of the government to stabilize the Cedi as promised had worsened their plight.
Better Times
The Vice-President said at the policy summit that the pragmatic steps being taken by the Akufo-Addo administration would soon yield positive results.
Speaking at the 4th National Policy Summit held in Tamale yesterday under the theme: “Assessing government’s flagship programmes,” he said that the government is on course to building a robust economy for the benefit of all.
“Ghana’s economic outlook under President Akufo-Addo has improved. This was confirmed last week by Standard and Poor’s, a global rating agency which has upgraded Ghana’s ratings, sovereign credit rating from B- to B with a stable outlook. And this is the first upgrade that Ghana has received in 10 years.”
He added, “In fact, we should recall that the NPP, under President John Agyekum Kufuor, left office with Ghana’s rating at B. After eight years of the NDC’s economic management, our ratings went from B to B-. This is after eight years! After only 20 months of new NPP government under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, we have been upgraded from B- to B.”
The Vice-President said that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) should be the last political grouping to complain about economic hardship because they ran the economy aground which the NPP government is trying to fix.
“The NDC in government, after eight years in office, is one that Ghanaians could and should no longer tolerate,” he said, adding the NDC superintended over a failing National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), a weak banking sector and high unemployment situation.
According to the Vice-President, “If you look at the data you will realise that whilst they (NDC) were borrowing, the debt-to-GDP ratio was increasing, jumping and ballooning. But while we are borrowing the debt-to-GDP is declining. So they should take a closer look at the data and come back again.”
“The NPP, under H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, promised, among other things, to change the education system to introduce free senior high school education; to change the management of the economy from the focus on taxation to the focus on production; to change from most districts with no factories to a philosophy of One District, One factory; to change from a situation where most villages in the north have no dams to a position of one village, one dam; to change from the predominance of sole-sourcing from public procurement to tendering in procurement; to change from the abolishing of teacher trainee allowances to the restoration of teacher trainee allowances; to change from the abolishing of nurse trainee allowances to the restoration of nurse trainee allowances; to change from a highly informal economy to the formalisation of the economy through digitization; through the issuance of a national ID card; through the implementation of the national digital addressing system…to change from the rising debt-to-GDP ratio to the declining debt to GDP ratio; to change from a weakening banking system to a stronger banking system.”
Cedi Debate
Dr. Bawumia insisted that the recent depreciation of the Cedi against major currencies would have hit Ghana hard if the fundamentals of the economy were not getting stronger.
“Over the last few months, the US dollar internationally has strengthened against many currencies. In Argentina, the Peso has depreciated by 50.2 per cent; in Turkey, the Lira has depreciated by 42 per cent; in South Africa, the Rand has depreciated by 19.2 per cent; in India, the Rupee has depreciated by 11.2 per cent; in the UK, and the British Pound has depreciated by 4.2 per cent; in Ghana, the Cedi has depreciated by 7 per cent. It’s in this context that we are saying that the Cedi to Dollar exchange rate has been relatively stable.”
From Eric Kombat, Tamale