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NPP makes no apologies for calling Mahama incompetent
The NDC's flagbearer, President Mahama, has come under criticisms for attacking the character of Akufo-Addo during his tour of the Western and Northern Regions to solicit for votes.
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The NDC's flagbearer, President Mahama, has come under criticisms for attacking the character of Akufo-Addo during his tour of the Western and Northern Regions to solicit for votes.
Reacting to the criticisms, the spokesperson for the NDC campaign team, Joyce Bawa-Mogtari, said the NPP flagbearer drew the first blood by labelling the president as incompetent, demanding an apology from the NPP if it wants a truce.
However, a deputy communications director of the party, Anthony Karbo, refuted claims that labelling the government has "incompetent" amounted to a personal attack on the president.
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He told Pulse.com.gh in an interview that the NDC administration since 2008 has mobilised the biggest revenue in the country's history only to run down the economy and seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
He said: "First of all, it is important to emphasise for the records that no government since independence has the amount of resources in terms of tax revenue; cocoa export, gold export, oil revenue and loans that the NDC administration has had between 2009 to 2015.
"In the last eight years of the of the Kufour administration, total tax revenue collected amounted to some GHC15.3 billion. Between 2009 and 2015 the Mills-Mahama administration collected taxes amounting to 90 billion, six times more in these 7 years.
"Between 2001 and 2008, gold export amounted to some GhHC 28 billion under the Mills-Mahama administration. If you look carefully you will realise that cocoa export between 2001 and 2008 yielded GHC7 billion. Mills-Mahama within the same period yielded GC17 billion."
According to Karbo, the addition of new resources such as oil generated some 4 billion for the country in crude export.
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He stressed that despite the slump in global commodity prices, the government has raked in more revenue to enable it to steer the economy out of austerity.
"So the NPP point is simply, it is only an incompetent government that despite all these huge resources can run the economy down and run to the IMF for a bailout. It is only and incompetent government that despite all these resources will supervise the biggest collapse of currency in decades. It is only an incompetent government that despite the resources will take over 5 years to resolve a basic issue like dumsor [power crisis] which has collapsed many businesses and created unemployment."
President John Mahama at a campaign launch in Cape Coast blamed the country's economic woes on the fall in commodity prices. However, Karbo contends that that cannot be true.
According to him, "facts clearly shows that even countries like Ivory Coast, Senegal and Kenya which are doing better than Ghana faced the same external conditions."
He continued: "So how can those countries be doing better and growing an economy which the NPP left with the NDC was growing at 9.1% in 2008 and today it is growing at less than 4%.
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Karbo stressed: "It is only an incompetent government who will have these opportunities yet blow them and plunged the country into crisis."
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