Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, a former Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), has claimed that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has the best track record of achievement among Ghana’s political parties, since the country gained independence in 1957.
Mr. Duffuor contended that Kwame Nkrumah’s record, which was primarily concerned with industry, was inferior to that of the NDC.
“Between 2009 and 2012, our performance has been the best since independence. No government has achieved what we achieved between 2009 and 2012. For forty years, the interest rates had come down, the Treasury Bills (TB) rates came below 10 percent, the Cedi over four years moved by 60 pesewas and our GDP was 14.5 in 2011.”
The NDC’s deliberate efforts to create jobs, according to the former Finance Minister, were flawless and resulted in a significant decline in unemployment rates for the first time between 2012 and 2013. “The job creation during our time was first class. The unemployment figure had dropped to 2.2 percent by the end of 2012/2013 and the figures are there to show,” he opined.
Additionally, Dr. Duffuour revealed that he will actively support John Dramani Mahama to defeat the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and gain political power.
“I am confident that we are winning because we are working and the NPP has been [in power] for seven years and has done little. But our performance has been the best since independence.”
However, he did admit that the NDC had a Dollar-Cedi issue in 2014, which, thanks to tough measures implemented by the NDC government at the time, had no impact on Ghana’s economy.
Ghana’s Economy Has Turned No Corner
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor also disputed’s assertion made by Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s current Finance Minister, that the country’s economy has improved.
The assertion was made by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta on July 31 in Parliament, when he delivered the Mid-Year Budget Review. He said that government policies and initiatives had begun to produce fruitful outcomes and that the economy was headed toward recovery.
Dr. Duffuor, however, disagreed with this evaluation. In order to demonstrate that the economy was far from on the road to recovery, he cited the declines in a number of different economic areas.
“What corner? In the first quarter of this year, if you look at the economic growth that the BoG statistics have released, we experienced a lot of contractions in very important sectors. We have experienced contractions in the construction sector, mining and quarry, wholesale-retail trading, water, sewerage and waste management.
“These are very important sectors that have contracted, so if you say you have turned the corner, what did you find in turning the corner?”
Additionally, he recommended that the e-levy be eliminated if the government was not receiving enough money from it. “Are we getting enough from it? If we are not getting enough from it, then it’s nuisance tax, you should scrap it,” he averred.