The minority in parliament says the minister for finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, has confirmed their position that the previous government left a robust economy.
According to the minority, the economic figures given by the minister to parliament in his presentation of the first budget statement of the sitting government, only corroborated their stance and exposed the deception of the government that it inherited a badly managed economy.
The minority spokesperson on finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam made the observation in a preliminary response to the 2025 budget statement and economic policy of the Mahama government on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
“To start with, as you all heard from the minister, he confirmed to the whole world today that the economy we handed over to the NDC government was a strong economy.
“We have been telling Ghanaians that the economy was not in crisis. President Mahama used the SONA… over an economy which was not in crisis.
“And yet he told Ghanaians the economy was in crisis. The Minister for Finance also tried to do the same. But, however, we all heard him alluding to the fact that this economy is a strong economy,” Dr. Adam said.
He continued that, “You watched the hesitation when it came to announcing the growth figures. You also watched with hesitation by the minister when it came to the debt levels, the debt to GDP levels. The reality is that as of the end of last year, 2024, the growth rate, real GDP growth, was 5.7%. And this was released just yesterday by the Ghana Statistical Service, confirmed by the Minister today.”
BUDGET
In reading the budget statement, the Minister for Finance informed the House what the real sector development was in 2024. Quoting the Ghana Statistical Service, the minister stated that “overall real GDP grew by 5.7 percent in 2024, compared to the growth rate of 3.1 percent recorded over the same period in 2023.”
However, he added that the “key driver of this growth was largely mining and quarrying, mainly gold, including galamsey,” adding that galamsey growth is not sustainable.
He also mentioned that in 2024 the mining sector recorded a growth of 19.1% and non-oil GDP grew by 6.0 percent, compared with 3.6 percent recorded in 2023.
2016 RATE
During the press conference yesterday, shortly after the minister’s presentation, the minority indicated that the previous NPP government took over from the NDC in 2016, with a growth rate of 3.4%. The minority thus argued it could not be right for the NDC to claim the economy under the NPP was in crisis when the data shows it grew at 5.7%, which is better than the 3.4% they inherited from the NDC in 2016.
PROJECTION
The former minister for finance described the 2025 economic projections by the government as “disturbing” and “disappointing.”
He argued that the government could not claim to be resetting an economy growing at 5.7% and project the next year’s growth at 4%.
“How can we say that this reset economy (4% projection) will be better than the economy that President Mahama [said the NPP] criminally mismanaged, and which grew at 5.7%?” he quizzed.
SCRAPPED
The controversial E-levy and betting taxes were not the only initiatives of the Akufo-Addo government that were ‘slaughtered’ by the first Mahama budget.
The finance minister announced that the government would “cut wasteful expenditures on inefficient and duplicative programs to reduce expenditure under the fiscal consolidation program.”
As a result of this decision, the famous One District One Factory policy will be eliminated, according to the 2025 budget statement and economic policy.
As of December 2024, approximately 250 factories had been put up and others were being constructed under the policy.
Apart from the 1D1F, the GhanaCARES program and the YouStart introduced by the previous government to create jobs for the youth will be eliminated.
The post Ato Forson Confirms: NPP Handed Over A Robust Economy To Mahama … Says Amin Adam appeared first on The Ghanaian Chronicle.
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS