President Nana Akufo-Addo has suggested that previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administrations managed the economy poorly.
Addressing guests at a presidential lecture at the Academy of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Germany on Tuesday June 13, he said Ghana had made efforts to become a developed economy, but several challenges had impeded its growth.
“The circumstances then [in 2001] were similar to what we have today: the people of Ghana voted to change a ruling government, the economy was in a desperate state and we had to go HIPC,” he said.
He indicated that then-President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration had to take difficult decisions to move Ghana out of the doldrums and “within four years conditions had improved and we were noticed around the world for good reasons”.
However, he lamented that the government that took over from ex-President Kufour did not invest much to grow the economy, leading to a situation where the country had to depend on foreign aid.
“Sadly, by 2013, we were back to a collapsing economy and having to seek bailouts from the IMF,” he underscores.
He noted that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government that has taken over was poised to change the fortunes of the country and called for support to make that a reality.
Meanwhile, he is not enthused about the inability of Ghana’s parliament to hold to account the executive arm of government.
“Our parliament, however, has one big handicap in its ability to exercise effective oversight over the executive arm of government,” he noted.
He said he believed that parliament must have full oversight responsibility of public finances. He proposed a constitutional amendment to give more power to parliament.
