Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama has disclosed that the current government has barely managed to deliver a GDP of $4 billion in four years.
Speaking at the party’s campaign launch today, October 7, 2020, John Mahama intimated that his administration performed well in comparison to the current NPP administration led by President Akufo-Addo.
“In 2012 Ghana’s GDP was 41 billion dollars, it was 55 billion dollars in 2016. According to the facts during my first term as president, we were able to add on to the size of our GDP almost 14 billion dollars. Ghana’s GDP in 2020 is projected to be somewhere around 59 billion dollars. This means that the current NPP government has managed only an addition of 4 billion in four years. This is the difference between us and them.
“We delivered 14 billion dollars growth in four years while they delivered only 4 billion dollars growth in four years”.
Justifying his assertions, the former president highlighted certain debilitating occurrences which could have well-grounded their efforts in achieving this feat.
“Some might say the reason NPP is delivering only four billion dollars growth is because we are now hit by a global crisis generated by COVID-19; that may be true. But during my first term as president, we had to face two years of a free fall in commodity prices on the international market which affected us”.
With this, he maintained that the NPP government has no claim by attributing the slide in GDP to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Also riding on the accomplishment of the party, John Mahama further pushed for the debate with President Akufo-Addo on grounds of economic performance.
“For almost a year, also thanks to a court case generated by the NPP, the country was on wait and see mode. We also faced the Ebola epidemic. You see the conditions are similar, and this is why my comparison between my first term as president and Nana Akufo-Addo’s term as president is relevant, and a debate between the two of us would have settled this once and for all.
“We both had to face dramatic situations, the difference is that we the NDC faced this situation but delivered 14 billion dollars addition to our GDP. There’s another big difference, we the NDC did not only face dramatic crisis, we also proved that we are able to overcome them and move Ghana forward”.
He further thrashed the opposition as he posited that they the NPP “never proved that they’re able to overcome any significant crisis and so the facts are crystal clear; we are better than them, far better than them in delivering progress and growth to our people”.
“This is why during this campaign, we have to be far better than them and I’m absolutely sure that we will”.
