Parliament debates SOTN address, Minority allege inaccuracies

The Majority in Parliament has defended the facts about the economy as presented by President Nana Akufo-Addo during his State of the Nation address, following the Minorty's claims the address was fraught with inaccuracies.

Speaking during a debate on the address on the floor of Parliament, the Minister for Planning, also the MP for Wenchi, Professor George Gyan Baffour said the current government was, nonetheless, ready to turn the economy around despite the difficulties it came to meet.

Professor George Gyan Baffour
According to Prof. Baffour, President Akufo-Addo divided his speech into three parts within the economy; public finances, the growth of the economy and job creation and the situation of the banks.

“Mr. Speaker, in all these three important sectors, it is clear that the economy that this government inherited from the past government is not only faltering but it is in a very ugly state. Our public finances are in a bad state. The government left huge arrears to the tune of GHc 7 billion because of unplanned expenditure,” he explained.

NDC didn’t miss IMF targets
Meanwhile, the Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson maintained the President did not present the true facts to the House, with reference to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Credit Facility program of US$918 million.

President Akufo-Addo, during his address, revealed that Ghana missed nearly all targets set for the country under the IMF programme as at December 2016.

According to the President, the previous National Democratic Congress government missed the targets due to financial and fiscal indiscipline in the management of public funds.

Cassiel Ato Forson
But Mr. Ato Forson said he was not aware of any fourth and fifth review of Ghana's programme by the IMF, given he was the deputy Finance Minister at the time.

He asserted that the three criteria; quantitative performance criteria, continuous performance criteria and monetary policy criteria, were met.

Outlining the details of the targets he said, “I can say on authority that what the President is saying cannot be accurate. I know for a fact, without even the IMF coming to Ghana for a review, some of these quantitative criteria, continuous performance criteria and monetary policy criteria have indeed been met.”

–
By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana