Parliament ends debate on President’s State of the Nation Address
Parliament yesterday ended the debate on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's maiden State of the Nation Address delivered in Parliament last week, with the Majority and the Minority leaders disagreeing on key aspects of the address.
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The disagreements concerned mainly the debt stock,the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate, energy infrastructure and security.
The Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said the President did not present a complete picture of the state of the economy and also failed to acknowledge the achievements of the immediate past National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.
But the Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, indicated that the President had highlighted the fundamental elements of the economy and outlined measures to propel socio-economic development.
Minority Leader
Mr Iddrisu said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) blamed the NDC government for being incompetent because of the power outages.
However, he said, the NPP in government now attributed the current power challenges to financial and technical challenges.
He said no government had invested more in the installation of energy infrastructure than the past NDC government.
On the GH¢122 billion debt stock mentioned by the President, Mr Iddrisu said the figure was arrived at because of miscalculation.
For instance, he said, the government team used the current rate of the dollar in doing the calculation of the debt stock, instead of relying on past rates.
He said the 3.6 per cent GDP growth rate for 2016 quoted by President Akufo-Addo was based on provisional figures.
Touching on violence in the aftermath of the elections, he said it was not enough for the President to condemn the attacks but that he needed to take measures to end the disturbances to protect the country's image as a beacon of peace and democracy.
Mr Iddrisu condemned the manner in which chief executive officers (CEOs) of state institutions were asked to proceed on leave and the short notice they were given to vacate their respective offices.
On the creation of a Special Prosecutor’s Office, he said it could not be done by the mere introduction of a bill, since it had to do with the role of the Attorney-General, which was an entrenched constitutional provision.
Majority Leader
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu accused the past NDC government of being in a state of denial of the true state of the economy for eight years.
For instance, he said, former President John Dramani Mahama had repeated that the fundamentals of the economy were strong when that was not the case.
The Majority Leader denied suggestions that the average GDP growth rate of the past NDC government was better than that of the previous NPP government.
He said it was because the economy was in a bad state that the government could not honour its statutory financial obligations to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and other programmes.
He dismissed a suggestion that the Kufuor administration did not build any energy infrastructure and mentioned the Bui Hydro Power Project as an example and indicated that the Kufuor administration added more than 1,300 megawatts of power to the national grid.
On the violence after elections, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said he supported the call for the perpetrators of the attacks to be dealt with, since their actions were wrong.
However, he said, such actions happened in the past but the NDC which was in government then did not condemn them.
