The 2020 Presidential Candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) John Dramani Mahama has slammed the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) for resorting to the scholarly display of grammar to deceive Ghanaians into believing that the economy is in good shape.
He recounted how the NPP in opposition used to chide his administration’s handling of the economy by dismissing any correspondence between the people’s welfare and the economic indicators.
At a public lecture to climax his nationwide ‘Thank You’ tour in Accra on Wednesday, the former president opined that despite the strong defense the government mounts on the economy, it is clear for every Ghanaian to see that the current economy in a state of malaise.
He indicated that the astronomical and rapid increase in the prices of goods and services on the market is a vindication of the fact that times are hard in the country.
“These days, however, even if the exchange rate has depreciated to a worrying level, they say the economic indicators are strong. Beyond these spirited linguistic acrobatics, the plain truth which we all see and feel is that the Ghanaian economy is in deep crisis. At the macro level, we feel the heavy impact of a troubled economy when you go to the market and find prices of basic items rising with alarming rapidity. We also feel it when we go to fuel stations and find that the already high price of fuel has increased again. We further feel it when our rents are increased or when we get into a ‘trotro’ and find that prices have gone up because of increases in fuel prices. Importers feel the pain because duties at the ports have become almost impossible to pay due to the amount of taxes slapped on them,” Mr. Mahama enumerated.
He asserted that the hardships Ghanaians go through as a result of mismanagement of the economy are so countless to the extent it is beyond the realms of possibility for a person to finish counting them.
Mr. Mahama argued that the NPP promised to make Ghanaians’ lives better but its five years in governance has seen the citizens’ lives go from bad to worse.
“The daily struggles of Ghanaians to make ends meet will be impossible to recount in one address. The question we ask however is how have things moved from bad to worse so quickly when we were promised a much better and more affordable standard of living?” he quizzed.
He went on to add that the hardship in the country is traceable to the incompetent management of the economy by the NPP government.
