Ghanaians have been called upon to wake up to the level distress, despondency, exasperation and gloom afflicting the country and salvage the economy.
The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is worried over the current state of the economy and has chastised the ruling National Democratic Congress for its reckless over expenditure.
According to the party, the cedi had within six years of the ruling party’s regime depreciated by over 227 per cent, a situation the Party described as alarming and unhealthy.
In statement dubbed “The true message of the present state of the nation,” the minority leader in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the cedi had depreciated only by 53 per cent over the entire eight-year period of the Kufuor administration.
“Today the exchange rate is GH¢3.6 to US$1. The simple meaning is that in the space of one year, the cedi has depreciated by 63.6 per cent,” the NPP said.
According to the Party, Ghana’s fiscal deficit and current account deficit have escalated into double digits with the public debt stock having risen astronomically from GH¢9.5billion as at 2008 to GH¢76.1billion.
The figure, he said did not include the undisbursed portion of the CDB loan.
It does not include the borrowing ensuing from the IMF negotiations and neither does it include the assistance from the EU which is conditional upon successful conclusion of the IMF talks,” he added.
The NPP reminded Ghanaians that the debt stock of over GH¢76billion meant that each Ghanaian owed GH¢3,000, an increase of 36 per cent over a debt burden of GH¢2,200 for every Ghanaian as at last year.
The Minority leader lamented over the fact that the debt stock of 2014 was four times Ghana’s oil revenue for the same year.
The NPP justified its description of the economy as a sinking one with the assertion that the Minister of Finance would soon present a reviewed budget to Parliament for 2015, noting that “it is not a supplementary budget.”
“It is a reviewed budget which means that we are throwing aside the 2015 budget approved in 2014, only two months after approval. A budget is a work plan for government, usually for a period of one year and offers predictability to investors, domestic and foreign to plan ahead,”
According to him, casting aside a budget which has been approved only two months back and introducing a new one meant government was incapable of planning for even a year.
“This has serious repercussions on investment and therefore the growth of the economy,” the NPP warned.
Referring to what it called discrepancies in statements made by President John Dramani Mahama over the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and figures churned out by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the NPP said “the difference between the figures of GSS and MoF clearly point to the uncoordinated nature of the management of the country’s economy under President John Dramani Mahama.”
Touching on the power situation in the country, the Minority Leader pointed to government’s indebtedness to the Volta River Authority (VRA) which had prevented the latter from importing crude oil to fire thermal plant, thus compelling VRA to overly depend on Akosombo to generate more power.
“Mr President, the fall in the level of the Akosombo reservoir ot a critical level is not solely due to low rainfall in the catchment areas but more as a result of the spillage and the over generation by VRA,” he said.
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