Growth under NDC was better than NPP – Ato Forson tells Bawumia

Deputy Finance minister, Ato Forson says an economic lecture by NPP Vice-Presidential candidate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia ignored the facts and went for propaganda.

Cassiel Ato Baah Forson said he wished the former deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana compared the average economic performance of both governments, and not pick and choose data.

If Dr. Bawumia did that, it will show that NDC did better than NPP on the average.

GDP growth was 5.7% under the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party administration between 2000 and 2008. But it was 6.3% under seven years of NDC, Ato Forson provided a response to the lecture held at the National Theatre on Thursday.

He said even without oil’s contribution to the economy, the governing NDC increased the growth rate to an average of 7.3%.

“So in anyway, you cannot say that NPP growth was far better than NDC. Eight years of NPP cannot be compared to seven years under NDC”, the deputy finance minister argued.

Ato Forson also criticized Bawumia for feeding Ghanaians with faulty data. He said Bawumia was wrong in claiming the fiscal deficit in 2012 was 12.2%.
“That is not correct: it was 11.5%” he indicated and added that he was also “woefully” wrong to say the deficit was 11.7% in 2013 when the data showed it was 10.2%.

Myjoyonline.