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Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah�Arthur has said the government�s debt portfolio had come about as a result of long term investment financing and payment of debts accrued under previous governments. He said capital infrastructure projects for a sound economic take off remains a priority for the government and the loans it had taken were to finance long capital project. He said the government had also paid a number of debts, including judgment debts and payment of debt such as that of celebrating the Ghana at 50 under the past Kufuor government. The Vice President was answering questions as to why the government had been silent to its critics over the debt portfolio and level of borrowing when he addressed the University of Cape Coast Branch of the Tertiary Education Network (TEIN) of the NDC on Tuesday. He said the former Kufuor administration borrowed money to celebrate Ghana @ 50 and the NDC government had to pay the debt, adding that the long term investment financing covered projects such as the Eastern Corridor roads and other major roads. He compared such projects to the Accra/Tema Motorway, the Akosombo Dam and the Tema Harbour that required heavy financing but have been paid for and giving income to the government. The Vice President said the government inherited very weak macro-economy from its predecessor, the NPP, with the largest fiscal deficit in the nation�s post independent economic history but the current government had been able to stabilise the economy and generated substantial economic growth. Inflation has been reduced from 20 per cent to a single digit, and the nation�s reserve which was then about two billion dollars has increased to five billion with a growth rate of more than seven per cent �In 2011, Ghana�s growth was the thirds highest in the world,� the Vice President said. He said the government was only at the 44 per cent of the allowable threshold of 60 per cent for loan and that the debts, such as the Chinese loan, were not themselves debts because they were nominal rather than real values. Vice President Amissah-Arthur said when calculated in today�s values, the loans contracted by the government in the last four year come nowhere near those from earlier values.