Vice president Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur says the 2016 manifesto of the New Patriotic Party has the potential to create the ‘most unstable’ economic development ever in the country.
Per his analysis and calculation, he said the implementation of the document would cause Ghana to lose GHC6.2 billion in revenue coupled with an additional expenditure of GHC21 billion.
“Their criticism of the NDC is that we have not sustained macro economic stability but in the manifesto that they have published, they have put in about 63 proposals; 8 of them are revenue proposals with which they’ll reduce revenue.
“When I calculate the cost, the revenue loss their manifesto proposes, I get something like GHC6.2 billion if they were running the government this year from the reductions in tax rate,” he told students at the Cape Coast Polytechnic.
“In addition, they have also introduce GHC21 billion new expenditures so together with the loss of revenue and with the increase in expenditure, we are talking of GHC27 billion of fiscal deficit that they’re introducing into the economy,” he claimed.
Mr Amissah-Arthur, who is an economist, claimed using the current GPD, the amount would translate into 20 per cent of fiscal deficit, indicating that will result in high inflation, major exchange rate instability and create many problems for Ghana.
The veep made these claims Monday night at when he addressed students of the polytechnic ahead of his four-day campaign tour of the Central Region. Mr Amissah-Arthur and President John Mahama are seeking re-election in the December 7 presidential election.
He suggested that the NPP’s manifesto christened “Agenda for Change: Jobs, Prosperity and Securing the Peace,” is not implementable.
“That manifesto in itself, is an admission of failure even at the beginning and I hope that when you read it you’ll look at it carefully the way I have and be able to see whether it is implementable or not,” he said.
Mr Amissah-Arthur argued that the NDC has a “much more credible programmes” for the future of Ghana than what the NPP has presented in its 2016 manifesto.
He said the NDC hopes to build a strong, resilient economy and provide transparent and accountable governance in the country.
NPP’s lacks understanding of economic concepts
Touching on the NPP’s criticism of the economy, Mr Amissah-Arthur said the series of lectures by the party’s running mate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, demonstrate the NPP’s weak understanding of economic concepts.
He said the NPP has exhibited “a weak understanding of economic concept… they mix various concept as they go along and they pick and choose which one makes their case strong… so there’s no consistency in the way our opponent have analysed the national situation.
The Veep added: “We expected that if they were smart, they would have corrected the analytical errors in the lectures that led to their manifesto, because they’ve come to the wrong conclusion, which are not justified by the data and the facts. They’ve persisted in drawing these wrong conclusions and putting them in their manifesto”.
He said it was unfortunate that the NPP uses every opportunity it gets to criticise the NDC of “creating instability in the macro economy” without looking at the fact that they benefited from debt cancellation under HIPC in John Kufuor’s era.
“They have also embellished the achievements of the administration of the NPP between 2001 and 2008 in order to achieve this goal,” he said.
Mr Amissah-Arthur likened the NPP to US republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying, “I call it Trumpian” because the people always deny all the developments and rather make all the ills in society the responsibility of the NDC.
By Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news.com|Ghana