President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has described John Mahama’s comments on Ghana’s debt stock as erroneous and a misrepresentation meant to sway Ghanaians from the failed administration he partly supervised from 2009 to 2017.
Speaking to a gathering of stakeholders in the Kwahu Traditional and Municipal area Wednesday, November 16, 2024, as part of his tour of the area, President Akufo-Addo said Ghanaians have not forgotten what transpired during Mahama’s administration.
He said Ghanaians saw the least percentage of growth in the past two decades under his administration when the nation underwent an Mahama’s performance is much worse than mine’ – Akufo-Addo on Ghana’s debt stockerratic power supply.
“I’ve heard John Mahama speak three days ago that the national debt has grown to unsustainable proportions.
“He must know that it’s not everyone who forgets easily. In 2008, when President Mills took over from President Kufuor, the national debt was 9 billion cedis, by the time they were leaving government, it was 120 billion. It was an increase of 1,233 percent,” Akufo-Addo stated.
Explaining further, he said, “in 2016, when I came, it’s gone from 120 billion cedis to 767 billion cedis, that’s an increase of 539 percent. This is less than half of the rate of accumulation of the debt in his time.”
Relating it to the exchange rate, President Akufo-Addo pointed out that, “to complete the calculation, in 2016 when he was exiting, 4 cedis to a dollar meant that 120 billion debt, was $30 billion. Today, at 767 billion cedis with the cedi being pegged at 17 cedis to the dollar, in dollar terms, is 45 bn usd.
“So we have one which went from 9bn to 120 bn usd. Because when he came it was 1 cedis to 1 dollar. 9bn dollars to 30 bn dollars, an increase of 21 bn dollars. You put that against a figure that has gone from 30 bn dollars to 45 billion dollars is an increase of 15 bn dollars,” he explained further.
Based on the exposition, President Akufo-Addo asked, “who has had the worst impact in the accumulation of our national debt stock?
“It certainly not me. His performance is much worse than mine. Sometimes when they speak, we don’t investigate it to see where the truth is. Truth, which cannot certainly come from a man under whose regime we had the Graduate Unemployment Association,” he stated.
