Yaw Buaben Asamoa
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) say the effectiveness with which its government has handled the economy in spite of the devastating economic effect of COVID-19 pandemic must not be overlooked.
The party said even under the COVID-19, the NPP government led by President Nana Akufo-Addo has performed far better economically than the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) when it was in government.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra yesterday, the NPP National Communication Director, Yaw Buaben Asamoa said a credible and neutral assessor International Monetary Fund in its recent Article IV consultation highly commended the government for the excellent way it has handled the economy under the debilitating effect of COVID-19 on the global economy.
“The IMF says Ghana has managed COVID-19 effectively and saved precious lives” he affirmed.
According to him strong policy actions being taken by this government to drive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) towards a remarkable projected 4.8%, having dropped to 0.4% in 2020 from a high of 6% in 2019.
He said the IMF report has put Ghana’s debt to GDP at 78%, up from 64.4% in 2019 but highly praised the carefully crafted Ghana CARES Obantapa programme focusing on Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and digitisation which are potential major drivers of employment and incomes.
“NPP Government had to battle debt, dumsor and a debilitating financial sector crisis to bring the economy back to growth beyond 6% only for COVID-19 to hit us harder than anything before,” he said.
“It is the contention of the NPP that we have done relatively better as public managers in the Fourth Republic. Kufuor inherited a HIPC economy from the Rawlings led NDC and bequeathed a lower middle income, oil producing economy to a successor, NDC government, which under Mahama, fell from an oil fed high of 14% growth to under 3%”
According to the NPP chief spokesperson, the government fared very well in a pandemic that continues to devastate not only health, but social and economic lives worldwide with most advanced countries struggling to cope, saying “indeed, as we speak, some countries in the advanced world are going back into lockdown.”
Mr. Buaben Asamoa said in assessing country economic risk at the height of COVID-19 in August 2020, analysts from EUROMONEY saw beyond the prevailing economic and fiscal shock and said Ghana had its underlying strengths intact.
He said the analysts from EUROMONEY also observed that though many countries had been downgraded, Ghana had gained points making it the fourth best investment destination in Africa.
“To fix the country, even in authoritarian regimes, was not easy much more in the open democracy we have,” he said.
“For us in the NPP, we believe a four year term cannot bring out the best in any particular leader. After eight years of strong, decisive leadership by Nana Akufo-Addo, our constitution demands a change of leadership but we still believe policies may not have matured yet. So it is important to continue credible policies by changing the leader and retaining the party providing good governance under fresh leadership. In. that way, we would avoid the ‘fix it’ search for instant results and opt for a sustained policy and leadership approach to development,” he pointed out
According to the NPP, many sophisticated electoral democracies have multiple political parties and groupings but tend to maintain a particular one in authority for the benefits of policy consistency and continuity like the liberal Democratic Party of Japan which has been in power since 1955 and the CDU in Germany which has had the lion’s share of governing Germany since 1945.
He noted that continuity of parties in power appears to be function of the effectiveness of their successive leaderships adding that President Kufuor offered exemplary leadership urging the country through HIPC to middle income status while President Akufo-Addo has come offering world class leadership and steering the country through the pandemic with an economic rebound faster than expected.
“Arguably, in Ghana, four years is too short whilst beyond eight years is not feasible for the individual at the helm. But a change of leadership and retention of a party beyond eight years is necessary if policy reform is to be sustained and enhanced. The NPP believes sincerely that it has the ideology, principles, respect for liberties and rights and leadership ethos to shepherd this country on a sustainable path forward rather than the NDC”.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr