President Mills address deficient of fresh ideas

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described President John Evans Atta Mills’ maiden State of the Nation Address as “deficient of fresh ideas and misleading” to Ghanaians.
It explained that the address which was titled a “rescue plan” turned out to be a recount of ongoing interventions, many of which had been made by the NPP administration.
Addressing a press conference by the party in reaction to the President’s maiden address to Parliament on March 19, 2009, Nana Ohene Ntow, the General Secretary of the NPP cited the promise by the President to revive the Aveyime Rice Project when Prairie Texas Company has started working on the project.
He said 81 acres of farmland had been cultivated with rice, and many other activities including 83 full-time staff and 50 workers who have been engaged by Prairie Texas company.
He said many of the promises made my President Mills under the “Health Infrastructure” were ongoing investment and added that “the promise to improve the working conditions of teachers was only supported by an assurance to pay teacher allowances promptly”.
Regarding President Mills pledge to managed the four stadia built by the NPP to reap maximum revenue, Ohene Ntow said the six other regions also deserved stadia as was envisaged by the NPP.
He also wondered how the Mills Administration would implement its promise to implement the onetime- premium payment for the National Health Insurance and asked “if it would be a huge unaffordable onetime-payment? Or would the existing funding arrangements be replaced by the imposition of high tax burdens on ordinary Ghanaians”.
He said the contradictory statements about the economy from the NDC to the effect that the economy was “broke” instead of appreciating the fact that even largest economies were experiencing economic challenges, culminating Ghana to experience temporary economic challenges.
According to Nana Ntow, President Mills’ assessment of the economic performance of the last administration started from close of 2007, when the global economic challenges begun to intensify during to the close of 2008.
In response, he said President Mills also pointed to a year-on-year inflation of 18.1 per cent at the close of 2008 but failed to add that the NPP inherited a corresponding figure of 40.5 per cent from the NDC at the end of 2000.
The cedi depreciated by 22.9 per cent in 2008; it depreciated by 50.2 per cent in 2000, the lending rates improved from an average of 47 per cent in December 2000 to an average of 27 per cent in December 2008.
Debt burden has improved from 189 per cent of GDP at the close of 2000 to 57 per cent of GDP at the close of 2008.
Commenting on the claim by the government that centred on a 2008 overall budget deficit of about 14 per cent, Nana Ntow explained that in 2008, Ghana was confronted with many unexpected needs to meet including importation of crude oil to power generators at a time when crude oil had reached $ 147 per barrel.
Explaining the debt of TOR and VRA, he alleged that the $ 2 billion combined debt for the two entities as stated by President Mills was misleading.
On TOR, he said a letter from TOR to the minister of finance, stated that the net exposure or the net debt was $ 167.53 million, this came from a total liability of $ 989.78 million and a total current assets of $ 822.25 million.
He also said that until November 1, 2008, fuel prices were not revised downwards in spite of the substantial decrease in crude oil price and the explanation from the National Petroleum Authority was that there was the need to defray some of the losses incurred in the preceding months.
He added that the $ 167.53 million was the losses in question and that if anything at all, the figure should have come down and added that the $ I billion TOR debt was therefore disingenuous.
Nana Ntow, therefore, cautioned that “this passion to paint a negative picture of Ghana’s economy for the purposes of achieving some non-existing short-sighted political advantage is unfortunate, and would undermine confidence in the economy and hurt us in the long run”.