Ntim skins NDC over misinformation politics

The National Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Stephen Ayensu Ntim, has stated that Ghana has debt challenge but it is inaccurate for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to suggest that the NPP government has over borrowed

This follows Asiedu Nketia’s claim that the Akufo-Addo government had over borrowed in his so-called true state of the nation’s address recently.

Addressing the press on Tuesday April 4, 2023 at the Alisa Hotel in Accra, Mr Ntim stressed that the borrowing narrative the NDC keeps propagating is a product of a misleading computation of Ghana’s debt designed to misinform and mischaracterize the record of this government.

The NPP Chair disclosed that official data from the Ministry of Finance shows that the nominal debt stock increased by 50% from 2013 to 2014 under former President John Mahama.

For example, he pointed out that if Ghana owed GH₵80 billion in 2013, the then John Mahama administration added 40 billion cedis, making it GH₵120 billion in 2014 alone.

Deceitful ploys

He, therefore, implored the opposition NDC to desist from the habit and strategy of deceit in its quest for power. Mr Ntim noted that “such methods are often short-term but have long-term ramifications for democracy, public confidence, and, not least, the global perception and embrace of Ghana”.

To this end, he charged the rank and file of the NPP to rise and mobilise behind government to defeat the onslaught of the NDC’s running vile propaganda games.

“This means that all of us in the NPP, from polling stations upward, must become canvassers and communicators to help disabuse the minds of our fellow Ghanaians from the misinformation that the NDC is feeding the nation,” he added.

The NPP chairman further urged the electorate not to fall for the deceit of the NDC to win electoral support. He recounted how the NDC vilified former President Kufuor and his appointees, and accused them of being corrupt.

He said, in spite of that accusation, when the NDC won the 2008 election and formed a government in 2009, until 2016, it could not convict a single appointee of the Kufuor administration for corruption.

Mr Ntim stressed that the NDC is not in the right standing when ranting and talking about the corruption, saying “it is the only political party in the Fourth Republic whose appointees or officials have been convicted and sentenced for corruption-related offences”.

He pointed out the consistent anti-corruption efforts by the NPP, which were initiated under former President Kufuor, and were followed up with the setting up of the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) by President Akufo-Addo to fight corruption proactively.

Economic management

The NPP Chair noted that the NPP government has managed the economy diligently, saying “the hardships we are experiencing in Ghana are being experienced everywhere because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War”.

He indicated that workers in some of the world’s biggest economies are demanding salary increases due to historic global inflation. “It is happening in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. In the United Kingdom, I was told a couple of weeks ago that they had to ration vegetables and cooking oil. Can you imagine rationing pepper in Ghana?,,” he quizzed.

Mr Ntim said the NDC-Mahama administration performed poorly. Between 2013 to 2016, he recounted the NDC had returned a mournful 3.9 percent average growth.

“GDP declined consistently over that period (2013-2016). Somehow, those who could not manage Ghana’s economy in a relatively stable global economic environment suddenly claim they have magic wand to turn the fortunes of Ghana around in this volatile global economy,” he said.

He emphasised that when the NPP took office in 2017, it turned around the mismanaged and collapsed economy inherited from the NDC. “The Industrial sector grew from 4.3 percent in 2016 to 15.6 percent in 2017. The Services sector increased from 2.8 percent in 2016 to 3.4 percent in 2017, and the agriculture sector also grew from the dismal 2.7 percent in 2016 to 6.2 percent in 2017,” he pointed out.

Gov’t appointees

On claims that the government had ignored calls to reduce its size, the NPP Chairman said the government had been listening to Ghanaians, and is establishing a more robust control mechanism to manage expenditure, while maintaining a dynamic team of ministers and appointees to deliver on its mandate.

“The government has addressed the call to reduce its size. Indeed, between this government’s first and second terms, the number of Ministers and Deputy Ministers has been significantly reduced from 126 to 86. This is because we are a listening Government. Additionally, the government has taken a difficult path by implementing further cost-cutting measures…,” he added.

The NDC, he said, had been promoting the view that this government had appointed people to needless positions and is paying them for doing nothing.

“It must be stated on record that many of the workers at the Presidency are public sector employees. Out of the 995 workers at the Presidency, 658 (66 percent) are public sector employees,” he disclosed.

“The NDC government had more presidential staffers than Akufo-Addo’s administration. We have 44 presidential staffers and one Minister of State at the Presidency, but the Mahama-NDC Administration had 61 presidential staffers, six Ministers of State, and the 3 “wise men,”, he concluded.