The Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) says that John Mahama rescued the Ghanaian economy in the space of 12 months back in 2009.
ASEPA, a self-styled governance think tank/anti-corruption and civil advocacy group, said Mahama did a great job while serving as head of the Economic Management Team when the National Democratic Congress entered office again after the 2008 elections.
According to ASEPA, Ghana’s economy was in decline but Mahama saved the situation, recording the first ever double-digit growth rates in the Fourth Republic’s history.
Kufuor’s crushed economy
In a statement, ASEPA said claims that the New Patriotic Party are better managers of the economy than the NDC under Mahama are inaccurate.
The group accused John Kufuor’s NPP government of abandoning Ghana to a crushed economy when it left office in 2009.
ASEPA said the cedi’s worst performance happened while Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia was deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana.
“Fact is the NPP government left a totally crushed economy with almost nothing in the coffers plus a single spine pay policy risk to the almost dead economy,” the statement said.
“But at the same time Dr Bawumia was on campaign platforms bastardising the NDC as worst managers of the economy when his track record at the Bank of Ghana was by making the Ghanaian cedi one of the worst-performing currencies in the world [sic].”
“Cooked” figures
ASEPA further accused the NPP government of 2001 to 2009 of falsifying figures to paint a good picture of the economy.
The group alleged that the Kufuor government forged figures for the international financial institutions to cover up the mess that the economy was in.
“And the problem is that, just like this current government, the previous NPP government was also cooking figures for the International Monetary Agencies just to cover up the mess they had created with the economy,” ASEPA said.
“Suffice to say that it is these same cooked figures that Dr Bawumia keeps quoting to support his frivolous argument that the NPP are better managers of the economy.”
ASEPA’s petition to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice to sanction the Chief Justice was recently dismissed. The group is currently the subject of a multimillion-cedi defamation lawsuit before an Accra high court.
E A Alanore
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