The Former President John Dramani Mahama has dismissed assertions that his administration left the country in a mess when he exited power in 2017. Addressing a town hall meeting in Tamale as part of his 2-Day Building Ghana tour, the former president said the propaganda must stop once and for all.
The two-day tour, which started on Monday, February 5, 2024, took him to three constituencies in the northern region. The constituencies are Yendi, Gushegu, and Mion. On his second day of the tour, the Former President visited the Aboabo Market, the Tamale Central Market, and the Tamale Light Industrial Area, where he interacted with traders and artisans.
Addressing a town hall meeting, the flagbearer of the NDC dismissed the assertion that his government left the country in a dire economic situation. ‘’and let me put this thing to rest once and for all. They always talk about the mess John Mahama left us—the economic mess he left us. Let’s just go down a comparison line. When I left office, the debt to GDP was 57%; today, the debt to GDP is more than 100%. It means if you take all of Ghana’s GDP and turn it into money, you will use it to pay all our debts and will still owe 3%,” Mr. Mahama stated.
On inflation, the Former President said when they left office, inflation was 15.5%, but the inflation under this government has gone to 54%, and it’s only now dropping to about 30%. Touching on cocoa production in Ghana, Mahama said, “Cocoa production was 96,000 metric tons, and we went for a syndication loan of 1.8 billion dollars. Today, cocoa production is less than 500 metric tons. And when they went for syndication, they got only 800 million dollars at 8%; we got 1.8 billion at 2%, and so what are you talking about? You can’t compare us,” he lamented. He also reiterated that the NDC government worked and brought two new oil fields, TEIN and Sankofa, into production, which led to oil revenue tripling.
In 2016, for the first time in Ghana’s history, we ran the government budget without taking GHC1 from the Bank of Ghana. Zero borrowing from the central bank. In 2021, you made the central bank print GHC 42 billion; the following year, in 2022, GHC35 billion, you made the central bank print for you, and that is why today the central bank is broke, because it made a loss of more than GHC 60 billion. When I was president, the Central Bank made a profit of GHC1 billion, and so that propaganda must stop once and for all,” he concluded.
Source: Sulemana Alhassan Tarimbia
