Kwaku Kwarteng stings Ofosu Kwakye

NPP MP Kwaku Kwarteng has rubbished the Deputy Information Minister’s response to the economic analysis put forward by NPP Vice-Presidential candidate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

In an attack on the NDC government’s economic management skills, Dr. Bawumia at an NPP Press conference said the NDC government holds the record for worst economic performances of any government in Ghana’s history

He criticized government’s excessive borrowing and said President John Mahama has “created toxic mixture of incompetence and corruption which has caused an explosion of suffering” on the Ghanaian people.

But the deputy Information minister Felix Ofosu Kwakye described Dr. Bawumia’s statement as “hackneyed and pedestrian propaganda masked as decent analysis”.

Felix Kwakye Fosu claimed that under the NDC government, single digit inflation lasted for 31 months, the longest ever period of sustained single digit inflation.

Government said this was “due to the prudent fiscal policy of the government and continued monetary restraint”

Felix Ofosu Kwakye also pointed out that under the NPP’s 8-year record single digit inflation lasted only one month.

But the NPP Obuasi MP has laughed off the claims by Ofosu Kwakye arguing that the NPP government inherited an inflation rate of 44% when it came to power in 2001 but brought it down to about 18.1% in 2008 when it exited power.

It is a reduction of about 26% in 8 years.

He said the NDC government inherited 18.1% in 2009, but after almost 7 years inflation is now 17.4%.

He argued that 26% reduction in inflation is no match for 0.7% reduction in nearly seven years.

Kwaku Kwarteng argued that the essence of Bawumia’s economic analysis was to show that the shrinking economy was having a biting effect on Ghanaian lives which is seen in the scarcity of jobs and crumbling of services like the National Health Insurance Scheme.