NPP grew economy by 62.5% -Bawumia
From Musah Umar Farouq, Wa
The vice presidential aspirant of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has said that the phenomenal growth of the Ghanaian economy under the Kufuor administration was a result of deliberate policies, and a well-thought out project to grow the economy and transform the then HIPC economy into a lower middle income economy.
Speaking at a Youth Forum held at the University of Development Studies, Wa Campus, late Saturday, Dr. Bawumia said, “the NPP increased the economy by 62.5% on the average, in nominal dollar terms in our 8 years, while the NDC, so far, on the average has been increasing the economy by 5.5% in nominal dollar terms in the last four years, including oil discovery.
He claimed every 12 steps the NPP took, the NDC had taken one. “It’s a ratio of 12 to 1, and that is how come we were able to transform the HIPC economy handed over to us into a lower middle income emerging economy by 2008,” he said.
According to him, the NPP didn’t have oil, and that the transformation witnessed was as a result of well thought out policies and reforms.
“The transformation of the economy between 2001 and 2008 was not a fluke, it didn’t just happen. In this world, if you think small, you are only going to do small things, but if you think big, you would achieve greatness. We were able to think big and do the big things. So we are going to transform the economy; there is no doubt about that, because we know how to do it,” he stated.
Dr. Bawumia was amazed that the NDC had found it difficult growing the economy at a more significant pace, despite the fact that the NPP bequeathed an economy which was in a far better shape than the NDC left it in 2000, and blamed the NDC for concentrating more on propaganda than working to better the lot of the people.
“You need to appoint people who know what they are doing in the economy. If you appoint propaganda experts in the management of the economy, all you would get is propaganda, and that is all we have seen in the past three and a half years,” he said.
The former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, who was key in the management of the Ghanaian economy between 2001 and 2008, expressed surprise at how some people involved in the management of the economy today had sought to trumpet their experience, though that experience had failed to positively translate into the proper management of the economy.
“If you say you have practical policy experience, then that should reflect in your policies. If the outcome of your policies is HIPC, then we don’t have anything to learn from you; if the outcome of your policies results in exchange rate collapse, then we don’t have anything to learn from you; if the outcome of your policies results in high unemployment rates, then you don’t have anything to be proud of; if the outcome of your policies results in high interest rates, then it is not relevant,” he said.
The NPP running-mate disclosed that under a Nana Akufo-Addo government, one of the key steps the administration would take to transform the economy was to promote local businesses and give the local private sector the incentives needed to grow and create the necessary jobs.
He said that the situation where foreign companies were given the best incentives to do business, as it happened in the STX housing deal, would be a thing of the past, and that Ghanaian companies would receive such incentives under the NPP to make them grow.
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