Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has taken on the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), over claims that the country has seen a rising debt levels under the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
NPP’s students group (TESCON) branch of the University of Cape Coast over the weekend during their annual conference, Dr Bawumia compared and contrasted the records of both NPP and NDC with regards to management of debt levels.
“I want to let you think about one thing; you hear the NDC saying aah, the debt level has gone up. Sure, the debt level has gone up, but economic levels have not gone down. The debt level has increased yes, but why do we want to maintain prudent debt level? When you teach economics, you have to ask your students that question; why is it that we want the debt levels maintained at prudent levels? The reason is that, if you do not manage your debt levels properly, it will affect your exchange rate, it will affect your interest rate, it will affect your inflation and it will affect your growth.”
“When the NDC was in government, well way before, they took us to HIPC. They had mismanaged the debt levels such that we had very high inflation, very high exchange rate depreciation, very high interest rate, and low growth. That was the legacy they left us. By the time we were going towards 2016, the debt levels had increased such that inflation was going up, the interest rate was going up, exchange rate depreciation was going up and growth also coming down, and they had to run to the IMF for a bailout. Wasn’t that the case? That was NDC economic management,” Bawumia said.
GhanaFeed.com
