The Crisis The NPP Left Behind For Mills Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media, it is not an exaggeration when we state that there has been no government in the history of our 4th Republic that has faced the Economic Mess and Crisis President Mills inherited from the NPP upon taking the reins of power on January 7, 2009. In addition to the global financial and economic crisis that ushered President Mills into office, the Mills led government also had to face an unprecedented budget deficit of about 15 percent on cash basis and about 22 percent on commitment basis. President Mills thus encountered astronomical arrears never heard of before in the history of Ghana and a badly mismanaged economy that brought in its wake a currency that was in free fall, inflation that had started galloping at a fast rate, a banking sector virtually strangulated with huge Non Performing loan ratios, contractors who were in disarray because they were deceived into getting their bankers to pre-finance contracts when the NPP had not provided a dime in the 2008 budget to cover most of those payments; major road contracts such as the Accra-Nsawam project were awarded without even securing a source of financing, TOR was virtually at a standstill due to crippling debts; debts which threatened to collapse the nation’s largest commercial bank, the Ghana Commercial Bank. As if these were not enough, foreign portfolio investors, upon realizing the astronomical mess the NPP left behind and how that was affecting the value of the cedi, started liquidating their investments with lightning speed which brought the cedi under even more unbearable pressure. Confidence of domestic and international investors and financial markets reached an all time low. We have not even mentioned the recklessness with which the NPP announced in the final hours of its mandate an incredible Increase in salaries as part of a Single Spine Salary Program completely oblivious of the fact that the arrears alone they had left behind virtually equaled the 35 trillion cedis, which was almost the whole debt of Ghana from 1957 to 2000- a recklessness that fortunately was realized by organized labour which rightly denounced the move. The people of Ghana will be eternally grateful to organized labour for that show of patriotism. In a nutshell, the NPP had so badly messed up the economy and left it in a state of suspended animation, barely alive in the Intensive Care Unit.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 10:38:59 +0000
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