We’re not borrowing too much — President Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama says his administration has been wrongly accused by its opponents of borrowing too much.
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He said his critics had deliberately failed to admit that governance was a continuum for which reason every government left debts behind for their successors to inherit.
Addressing a National Democratic Congress (NDC) rally in Ho last Thursday to climax his two-day “Changing Lives, Transforming Ghana” tour of the Volta Region, the President said the Kufuor administration accounted for 41 per cent of the country’s current debt.
“Government is a continuum, and, so governments leave debts behind and other governments inherit them and pay them off, but they also borrow in order to be able to do infrastructural projects. So, it’s a rolling thing”, he said.
Breakdown
”Our external debt amounts to $14 billion. If you disaggregate the debt and you apportion it by the different governments, then from 1980 – that is part of Limann’s government through Rawlings’s government from 1980 up to the year 2000, that is the NDC one, that period is responsible for nine per cent of the debt,” the President said.
“If you take that same debt, and you break it down, 41 per cent of that debt is attributable to the time between 2001 and 2008. Now from Professor Mills’ time to my time, if you take Prof’s time, it’s 33 per cent of the debt and 2013 to 2015 is 17 per cent of the debt.
“So Prof’s time to my time accounts for 50 per cent of the debt. The other 50 per cent is debt that we have inherited and that, we are paying, “ the President said.
Accusing the NPP of throwing dust into the eyes of the public, he said, “So, normally when they throw these figures out, if you don’t analyse the figures, they just throw them out in a Goebellian fashion to confuse the electorate and just put blame on some governments, but we’ve taken that debt. We’re servicing it because I know that it was used for development,” he stated.
Sleeping MPs
President Mahama rejected claims by the NPP that loans contracted by his government were misused.
He explained that every single loan the government contracted went through parliamentary approval.
“You say we haven’t used the loans for anything and that we are misusing monies, meanwhile every loan we take is taken through Parliament for approval so what have they been doing; have they been sleeping?” he asked to cheers from the teeming crowd at the rally.
Revenue mobilisation
President Mahama again launched a tirade at the running mate to the flag bearer of NPP, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, for suggesting that the NDC government had raised more revenue than any government yet had little to show for it.
He said Dr Bawumia should rather pat him on the shoulder for the government’s ability to raise the highest revenue rather than the unjustified criticisms.
"Is it a sin to raise more revenue?" he asked, adding, “ I am surprised that as an economist, you find something wrong with raising revenue."
The President said all revenue raised in the country were not squandered.