Ghana Better Off Now Than Mahama's Era—NPP MP

Deputy Minister for Railways Development, Hon Andy Appiah Kubi says Ghana's economy is far better off now than how it used to be during the erstwhile John Mahama administration.

The Asante Akim North MP believes the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo-led NPP government has laid a solid foundation which will spur the country on to prosperity.

The astute lawyer in his submissions during a radio interview as monitored by Modernghana painstakingly compared the economic prowess of both governments (NDC and NPP) with facts and figures.

Citing the Economic Growth Rate (Annual GDP) of both governments for example, the astute MP said, the Economic Growth Rate (EGR) is the rate at which a nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the market value of all the goods and services produced in the country in a particular time period, grows from one year to another.

In 2016, he noted that Ghana's GDP was 42.80 billion dollars with a 3.7 per cent increase in EGR indicating that the Akufo-Addo's first year in office saw the GDP rise to 47.33 billion dollars with an 8.5 per cent EGR increase.

"The last figures from the GSS indicate that the EGR for the last quarter of 2018 was 7.4 per cent", he revealed.

Touching on the inflation rate, the revered lawmaker expatiated that inflation in simple term means the general level at which prices go up.

At the end of Mahama's tenure in 2016, he stressed that inflation was 17.5 per cent noting that the Akufo-Addo government brought the figure down to 12.4 per cent in 2017 and pegged at 9.47percent in 2018.

Stressing on fiscal deficit to buttress his point, Mr Appiah Kubi adduced that, "simply put, the fiscal deficit is the difference between total revenue and total expenditure of the government adding that, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2016, Ghana's fiscal deficit was 9 per cent of GDP.

"The figure reduced to 5.9 per cent of GDP in 2017 and was 2.8 per cent by the middle of June 2018 and well within the 4.5 per cent that was projected for 2018," he stated.

Expounding on the debt-to-GDP ratio which is the ratio of a country's public debt to its gross domestic product (GDP), the one-time General secretary aspirant of the ruling NPP revealed that, "Debt-to-GDP ratio is what a country owes as compared to what it produces. Ghana's debt-to-GDP which stood at 73.1 per cent in 2016, dropped to 69. 5 per cent in 2017. According to the 2019 Budget statement, debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 67.3 per cent by June 2018".

Citing balance of trade as the final indicator to his submissions that the NPP is managing the economy better than NDC did, the affable MP stressed that the Balance of Trade (BOT) is the difference between the value of a country's imports and exports over a stipulated period.

"A country that imports more goods and services than it exports in terms of value will have a trade deficit and the other way round will have a trade surplus. By June 2016, Ghana had recorded a deficit of $1.4 billion."

This, according to the 2019 Budget statement, was improved significantly to a surplus of $1.1 billion as at June 2017 and another surplus of $1.1 billion as at June 2018.

This means the current government has strengthened Ghana's trade position with the rest of the world. Looking at these statistics, it is quite clear that Akufo-Addo's government is managing the economy better than the Mahama administration", Hon Andy Appiah Kubi ​​​​​​intimated.