Edzorna Francis Mensah
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo touted himself as managing the economy well and better according to plan since the (NPP Party) took office as the ruling party in Ghana.
According to him, “the NPP government came into office with a plan to build a resilient economy and set us on the path to prosperity. We were on course, and our performance between 2017 and the beginning of 2020 demonstrates we were making rapid progress. Indeed, in 2017, 2018 and 2019, we recorded average annual GDP growth rates of 7%, making us one of the fastest-growing economies in the world”.
He said they grew the economy from the cedi equivalent of fifty-four billion United States dollars ($54 billion) at the end of 2016 to the cedi equivalent of seventy-two billion dollars ($72 billion) in 2020, a thirty-three percent (33%) increase.
To him, “in all, data from the Ministry of Finance tells us that an amount of GH¢17.7 billion (or 4.6% of GDP) has been spent in containing the pandemic since 2020”. These were contained in the President Message on The State of The Nation delivered on Wednesday, 30th March 2022
Speaking on the COVID-19 issues, The President added “we have saved lives and fared much better than we had feared and the experts predicted, but the consequences of lockdowns, border and business closures, and unplanned expenditures have combined to have a devastating impact on our economy”.
He said the unplanned expenditures included, but were not limited to, the recruitment, on a permanent basis, of fifty-eight thousand, one hundred and ninety-one (58,191) healthcare professionals, and the payment of extra incentives to our frontline health workers.
“It took an unbudgeted GH¢1.9 billion to ensure that our children and teaching staff went back and stayed in school safely. Some, including a few in this Honourable House, went as far as to accuse the government of trying to kill Ghanaian children when we introduced the controlled school re-openings. I might add here that, in some countries, school closures have lasted for twenty (20) months, and children are only now going back to school. Our children did not lose a single academic year.
We provided nearly five million (5 million) households and over ten million (10 million) people with electricity and water subsidies at the time they were most needed”.
