Former President John Dramani Mahama has said under the late President Mills administration under which he had the privilege of serving as Vice President and Head of the Economic Management Team, they turned inherited a large budget deficit and huge arrears as well as a depreciating currency.
He said his administration put in real effort to address them comprehensively and laid down critical structures that today have become some of the most important pillars supporting the Ghanaian economy.
Former President Mahama was speaking at an event organized by the Professionals Forum (PROFORUM) of the NDC in collaboration with the Center for Ethical Governance and Administration (CEGA) and dubbed “the State of Ghana’s economy – The Score Card”.
Mr. Mahama said they inherited the oil economy in 2009 and put in place the necessary mechanisms and institutional arrangements to ensure that the Country derived maximum benefit.
Recounting some of the critical structures, Mr. Mahama said his administration passed the PRMA under which we set up the Stabilization and Heritage Funds with about $ 500 million in them at the time we left power in 2017.
He said they tackled the power crisis too head-on and by the time we left office in January 2017, had sufficient generation capacity to withstand future shocks and brought stability and reliability to fuel supply for power generation when we built the Atuabo Gas plant to process gas.
“We set up ESLA, which by 2024 should have yielded up to GHS 40 billion. This stands us in good stead to overcome the stifling legacy debts in the energy sector and help address the liquidity challenges in the sector. We set up the Ghana Infrastructure and Investment (GIIF) to mobilize capital to undertake major infrastructure projects and one of its first success stories is Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport.”
“We also established the Ghana Exim Bank to promote trade and commerce within the Ghanaian economy. We had the Sinking Fund, which is a mechanism through which we would set aside funds to retire maturing debt. As of 2016, we had saved up to $550 million to pay off the first sovereign bond floated under President Kufour.”
The former NDC flagbearer said “We had the contingency fund from which we found money to underwrite the relief effort in the aftermath of the June 3rd Disaster. We did all of these alongside massive investments in capital projects with the view to accelerating our economic development. We ensured that we kept our public debt within manageable limits with debt amounting to 56% of GDP.”
“We also brought down the rate of accumulation of debt as has been vividly demonstrated by Seth in his presentation.”
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
