Nduom accuses NDC of lack of economic blueprint

The Convention Peoples Party (CPP), on Wednesday said the National Democratic Congress Government under the Presidency of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, lacked economic blueprint for accomplishing the “Better Ghana Agenda”.

Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, CPP Election 2008 Presidential Candidate, said; “As we sit here today, the NDC Administration led by Prof Mills has not been able to provide the country with the plan for managing the economy over the four year term of office and beyond.

He was speaking at a press conference, chaired by the National Chairman and Leader, Mr Ladi Nylander in Accra said: “We do not have the blueprint for the “Better Ghana Agenda” that the President and the NDC keep referring to”.

The event, the first in the series to be organised by the “CPP Shadow Cabinet,” tagged: “How the CPP Will Do It – Bringing The Economy Back Home,” outlined “15 Economic Means,” to transform the nation.

Dr Nduom, CPP Shadow Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, was flanked by other Shadow Ministers including Dr Henry Lartey, Trade and Industry, Mr Bright Akwetey, Attorney General and Justice, Wing Commander Pat Sorgbordjor (rtd), Defence and National Security, Mrs Susan Adu–Amankwah, Environment and Social Welfare, and Mr Felix Amoah, Works, Housing, Water and Roads.

Dr Nduom said: “For 2010, the NDC presented a business as usual policy orientation that included the usual NDC/NPP blame game”.

He said the CPP on the other hand, prior to 1966, had a blueprint for the future progress and development of Ghana as a nation.

Dr Nduom said the CPP also had a programme of social and economic development based on the use of science and technology to revolutionalise agriculture and industry.

He said: “It held a promise of a brighter future based on prosperity for all Ghanaians, a prosperity that was in part realized until it was abruptly truncated”.

Dr Nduom, who was a former Minister for Public Sector Reforms under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government, alleged that: “With firm signals of uncertainty and lack of confidence, the NDC Administration’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning introduced the 2010 budget to Parliament in a way that told Ghanaians that the road to the so-called ‘Better Ghana,’ has many curves, potholes and roadblocks”.

He said the NDC’s economic stabilization and fiscal control initiative, which aimed at reducing the current budget deficit to sustainable levels, improve the exchange rate regime, and work towards the attainment of single digit inflation was a ploy of statistics game.

Dr Nduom said 2009 brought in its strides stagnation in economic activities and a high cost of living and many banks deliberately slowed down lending and money has become scarce.

“The Mills Administration in 2009 led us back firmly into debt and into the iron-clad grips of the World Bank and the IMF and their growth-suffocating conditions which we have been unable to meet resulting in the slowing down of disbursement,” Dr Nduom said.

He said the NDC 2010 budget also continued the policy of achieving macro-economic stability and fiscal consolidation at the expense of real growth that would encourage job creation and rise in standard of living of Ghanaians.

Dr Nduom said the 2010 budget did not carry with it the policy intentions that would make it possible for “our companies to gain easier access to credit, obtain lower cost funds and create more jobs in the country.

“The NDC’s priority spending areas for 2010 were: Oil and Gas; modernisation of agriculture, private sector development, key infrastructure development and information and technology development.”

Dr Nduom indicated: “No new strategies were presented by the NDC’s Finance Minister to show how we will get there. Much was said about stabilization, expenditure controls and arrears payment – what made the economy stagnate in 2009 but very little about growth”.

He said that the Mills Administration missed its 2009 Gross Domestic Product growth target of 5.9 percent with an actual of about 4.7 percent.

Dr Nduom said: “it is difficult to determine how we will reach a growth target of 6.5 percent in 2010.”

He said without growth, the dream of middle income country in a “Better Ghana” would not be achieved during the four-year tenure of the Mills-led NDC Administration.

“To reduce poverty significantly and become a middle income country, it is agreed by many that the Ghanaian economy must grow in the eight to 10 percentage range. The management of the economy by relying on inflation targeting, slowing government expenditure while liberalizing trade will not get us there,” Dr Nduom stated.

He expressed concern about the Economic Governance and Poverty Reduction Credit from the World Bank, which according to Dr Nduom was designed to serve as partial bridge to the onset of oil production.

Dr Nduom said: “The conditions for disbursement from this facility are virtually the same or similar to the ones attached to facilities granted to the previous NDC regime and NPP administration. Nothing has changed.

“This can only mean that we have started to spend oil revenues even when as a country we have not agreed on the use of the resource”.

Source: GNA