Our ‘collapsed’ economy, better than economy we inherited- Bawumia

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the current 'collapsed' state of the economy was better than the economy the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government inherited in 2017.He said despite the occurrence of the COVID 19 pandemic and the Russia Ukraine War, which globally impacted economies negatively, the flagbearer of the NPP government had been successful at managing the economy.'And if you look at what we have done in the last seven years, we are now in our eighth year, It is very clear. If you look at all the routine things that governments do in the area of development, we have done much more and performed much better than his(John Mahama) government,' he said.Dr Bawumia made the remarks at the 8th edition of the CEO Summit held in Accra, in response to an address delivered by former president Mahama.Dr Bawumia explained that the NPP government managed to turn around an economy characterized by high unemployment rate, unstable power supply, declining agricultural growth and low industrial growth.'And they had to cancel teacher training allowances. They couldn't pay. They had to cancel nursing training allowances. They could not pay,' he said.Under the current administration, he said the growth rate in agriculture has been twice the rate of the previous government with an average growth rate of 6 per cent.Moreover, he said 2.1 million jobs had been created in the public sector which was more than what any government in the fourth republic had done.He also talked about the introduction of the free Senior High School education policy and the construction of more social infrastructure than any government.These included roads, railway lines, public libraries, airports, 1,500 telephony sites and ambulance vehicles for all constituencies.'We are in the process of building 120 court buildings. 80 have been completed…We've built more fish landing sites, 11 completed. We've done more sanitation facilities, increased the proportion of the population with access to sanitation facilities from 33 per cen t to 59 per cent.'We've built more sports facilities in the country than any other government in the fourth republic. When we came in, we had only three astro turfs in Ghana. There are 150 for us in Ghana,' he said.Dr Bawumia added that,' we have built 10 multi-purpose sports stadiums, completed six of them. And the others will be completed soon,'.Source: Ghana News Agency