Economic challenges not attributable to Veep - Egyapa Mercer

Hon Andrew Egypa Mercer, the Member of Parliament (MP) of Sekondi, indicated this morning on the New Day programme on TV3 that the economic challenges that the country has faced since COVID-19 is not attributable to the Vice President.

He acknowledged that NPP as a party is not disputing the fact that the Vice President is an integral part of the Economic Management team of the government. However, to question the economic prowess of the Vice President, one will need to review the body of work of this administration since it took office in 2017 till date and not just limit the assessment to the post pandemic period which has suffered from global external shocks.

To buttress his assertion, Hon Mercer noted that the Vice President presided over an economy that experienced one of its highest average economic growth rates in recent times of about 7% from 2017 to 2019 with inflation rates in single digits; these are verifiable. He pointed out that the pandemic and post-pandemic period of 2020 to 2023 has witnessed two major successive global external economic shocks in the form of the pandemic and later the Russia-Ukraine war resulting in both sluggish economic growth rates and high inflation across the globe, with Ghana not spared.

Hon. Mercer further argued that, in response to some of these external economic shocks, parliament was supposed to urgently roll out certain domestic policies to safeguard the economy but failed to do so. For example, it is the failure of parliament to respond timely to implement much needed revenue generating policies at a time that our Debt to GDP ratio increased sharply in 2020 and credit rating agencies were likely going to downgrade our sovereign credit rating and deny us access to international capital markets, but parliament politicized the policies by delaying and weakening their effectiveness thereby contributing to the worsening of the economy. He said parliament ought to have ensured that the domestic policies were rolled out timely to help mitigate the expected adverse impact of the global external shocks. However, the over politicization of some of these much needed safeguard policies unfortunately resulted in the further weakening of the economy; hence, the need for IMF support to help jump start the economy.

The Sekondi legislator highlighted that the law requires that you pass your budget, your appropriations and your revenue generation measures at a certain date but all these failed. Hence this failure cannot be attributable to the Vice President. He reiterated that parliament was required to adhere to the statutory provisions of the Public Financial Management Act, more so during such a precarious period, but it was breached, contributing significantly to our economic woes.

When the honorable MP of Sekondi’s views were sought on what his fellow legislator and an aspiring NPP Presidential candidate, Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, said about the economy in a video circulating on new media platforms, Mr. Mercer responded that allegations made in the video about the management of the economy should be situated in the proper context instead of blaming the Vice President.

Hon. Mercer called on all the delegates of the elephant family to offer an overwhelming support and massive endorsement of the Vice President because in his candid view and views of the generality of the party, the Vice President is the best person to lead the Party to break the eight (8).