THE Minority Spokesman on Finance, Mr Moses Asaga, has said the 3.7 per cent growth rate recorded in the last fiscal year by the previous government is laudable in the face of prevailing international economic difficulties.
That growth rate, he said, represented 74 per cent of the projected five per cent.
In a statement issued on behalf of the NDC in reaction to the President’s Sessional Address, he said the assertion of President Kufuor that the growth was \"far lower\" than projected is not true.
He pointed out that considering the rather difficult international environment at the time, the former government’s performance ought to be commended and not condemned.
Mr Asaga explained that the $5.8 billion external debt of the country comprises project loans which the government cannot use for recurrent expenditure because they are strictly meant for specific projects and infrastructure development.
He said the figure as quoted by President John Agyekum Kufuor is not a debt payable overnight as Ghanaians are made to believe \"because the external debt which were acquired to suit the interest of Ghanaians were long term concessionary loans, most of which are repayable over years and not in the four- year term of the NPP Government\".
\"We also wish to allay the fears of Ghanaians that the debt situation is a global one confronting most developing countries\", he added.
He indicated that \"whilst Ghana\'s external debt is $5.8 billion, our neighbour Cote d\' Ivoire is $9.6 billion and a well endowed and oil producing country like Nigeria is $11.85 billion. Chile has an external debt of ?27.8 billion and a performing economy like Malaysia has an external debt of $32.5 billion\".
Mr Asaga said the NDC Government applied itself to these principles and channelled the resources into the construction of asphalt roads, extended and provided electricity to all district capitals and other rural communities, provided and improved urban and rural potable water, rehabilitated air and sea ports to their present international status.
He also mentioned the Korle Lagoon, Odawna and Keta Sea Defence projects which are currently underway as some of the projects the NDC Government used the loans for.
Mr Asaga said \"the NPP may want to wish away these development projects but most beneficiaries and posterity will be our Judge\", he added.
On the $25 million for the rehabilitation of Parliament House, the former deputy Minister of Finance, pointed out that it was consolidated in the ERSO II loan facility of $180 million as a residual top-up negotiated on what he described as \"gentleman\'s\" agreement with the World Bank.
\"In priority terms, the $25 million was to be the last disbursement tranches because the facility was strictly meant for budgetary and balance of payment support\", Mr Asaga said.
He said \"the World Bank Resident Director in Ghana, Mr Peter Harold, admitted on Joy FM radio Programme (Front Page) on Friday, February 16 that the last tranche which would have included the Parliamentary allocation was released only five months ago (September 2000).\"
Based on this, Mr Asaga noted that work on the parliament building which is on-going could not have been completed within the short period of five months as the President wants Ghanaians to believe.
\"The President alleged that part of the $25 million was misapplied but went ahead to assure the nation that the Job 600 project would be completed without disclosing his source of income\", he said.
Mr Asaga described the omission as one \"wickedly\" intended not to give credit to the NDC Government which initiated the project and actually started the rehabilitation using domestic resources whilst sourcing external funding to complete it.
\"Indeed, this ERSO facility which the NPP Government is frantically alluding to and cashing in on is the same loan that they voted against recently in Parliament because of the conditionalities attached which included the privatisation of the Ghana Commercial bank and Ghana Oil Company (GOIL),\" he added.
He pointed out that two decades ago, the NDC Government inherited a domestic debt figure of $4.5 billion from the then PNP government adding that \"Dr Jones Ofori Atta, the Finance and Economic spokesman of the Danquah/Busia Tradition in the Third Republic (PFP) described the figure as \"whacking\" and showed the extent to which the PNP was destroying the base of the economy\".
Mr Asaga said his former colleague, Mr Victor Serlomey on October 27 briefed Parliament on the debt situation which has not substantially changed since then.
\"At that time, the external debt situation according to Mr Asaga was given as $5.5 billion at the end of June. Clearly against the backdrop of the external economic shocks, the President cannot claim that the difference between $5.8 million and $5.5 million is significant enough to warrant his alarming description of the financial plight of the nation as shocking.
He wondered why the President is pretending not to know about the situation and hence paint a picture in the minds of Ghanaians by saying that his government has inherited hopelessness, an economy in despair, among others.
