The Member of Parliament for Nhyieso in the Ashanti region, Dr. Stephen Amoah a.k.a. Sticker has stated that if National Democratic Congress, NDC, happened to be in power now, Ghanaians would have been plagued with severe hunger and untoward economic hardship, killing huge number of them in the process.
“If NDC had been In Power, They would Have Killed 1.2million Ghanaians with Poverty”. I’m saying this because they couldn’t have found a meaningful solution to the current prevailing economic crisis, which was brought about as a result of Coronavirus pandemic.
” I’m saying this to remind Ghanaians that NDC could not have performed just as NPP have done with all these economic prowess to mitigate the economic hardship we are facing.”
Dr Stephen Amoah made this statement when he was speaking to Safa Kaye on Peace Fm in Accra.
He stressed that the Government had put in place robust Economic interventions to stabilize the economy.
“But for implementation of good economic interventions, the hardship would have been worse”,
He noted that what had engaged government attention was the urgency to create sustainable jobs for the teeming unemployed youth in the country.
” Government’s concentration is job creation to ensure quality of standard of living, thereby minimizing cost of living to mitigate hardship on Ghanaians
Dr. Stephen Amoah noted that it was as a result of prevailing economic crisis that has brought about increases in Ghana’s debt portfolio.
He indicated that between 2008 and 2016 under leadership of the late president Professor Evans Atta Mills and the former president John Dramani Mahama, Ghana’s public debt was around 9.2 billion dollars, but shot up to 120 billion dollars, representing over 1000 percent.
” But we should know that during this time there was no pandemic in the country, yet Ghana’s debt increased from 9.2 billion dollars in 2016 to 120 billion dollars in 2016.
He noted that development of any country involved processes, and that NPP government was committed to do whatever was needed to put the economy on track.
He was of the view that the government before the Coronavirus pandemic had put the economy on the right footing, but due to the health crisis, the plans of government to sustain the growth of the economy was disrupted.
” Now the government is planning to put back the economy on the track. Yet, while we are planning for this economic resuscitation, we are also serious to think about how to create jobs for Ghanaians, particularly the youth.
Dr. Stephen Amoah reiterated that as party of government’s effort to create jobs for the young people in the country, government had decided to establish Youth Bank to support youth enterprises and entrepreneurship.
” The Youth Bank will create an avenue for the young people who are into partisanship and other trading activities to help cushion the young people in the country.”, he noted
He asked Ghanaians to exercise restraint for the government to continue to expand the economy to consolidate economic gains for them.