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Minority leader Haruna Iddrisu has expressed disappointment in President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Message on the State of the Nation that he delivered to Parliament on Tuesday.
He noted that conspicuously missing in the message was Ghana’s public debt, a topic that the President ‘trumpeted and danced’ to in 2017.
According to him, the silence of President Akufo-Addo on the national debt is significant and exposes his failure in the management of the country’s debt.
The Minority leader was speaking on Thursday during the conclusion of debate on the President’s message to the House.
He stated that the official numbers released at the end of November 2020 show Ghana’s public debt was GH¢286.9 billion excluding the ESLA, and accounting for approximately 78% of GDP.
“The same President in February 2017 had this to say about our national debt; ‘Mr. Speaker, the increasing fiscal deficit and financed by increasing borrowing as at the beginning of 2009, Ghana’s total debt was GH¢9.5 billion. By the end of 2016 the debt stock had ballooned to GH¢122 billion,’ reports President Nana Akufo-Addo,” he stated.
According to Haruna Iddrisu, the debt has today elephantised from GH¢122 billion to GH¢286 billion, meaning from 2017 to 2020 under President Akufo-Addo he had borrowed a whopping GH¢164.9 billion.
He expressed shock that the President was not even ready to report this to Parliament in his address to the House.
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He said, “Mr. Speaker, he ought to because we need to understand how much fiscal space he has, for instance when he declared 2021 as the year of roads.”
“Money is needed to construct roads so we should know the public debt to determine how much fiscal space he has.”
The Minority, he said, is however not surprised the President refused to share such vital information with the Ghanaian people.
Speaking on corruption and the fact the word did not even feature once in the State of the Nation address, Haruna Iddrisu charged President Akufo-Addo to investigate the PDS scandal stating, “Nobody knows how much money accrued to PDS, where the money is and who is entitled to that money.”
“Billions of Ghana cedis to this day being held by PDS and yet no reconciliation with the Minister of Energy but we are told we are in a country where there are transparency and accountability,” he added.
He urged President Akufo-Addo to do the needful and expedite investigations on the missing excavators, the Australian Visa scandal, the BOST contaminated fuel scandal and the PPA contract for sale.
The state, he said, must take a second look at the asset declaration regime especially as corruption remains a veritable source of wealth.
Individual earnings, he said, must be related to incomes and against assets that are acquired.
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Frontpageghana.com/Ghana
