GHANA NEWS: NPP MPs Sleep In Parliament, President Mahama taunts opposition NPP

 

President John Mahama yesterday blasted the minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Parliament for accusing him of throwing the country into huge debt due to unbridled borrowing.
He dismissed claims that his government has misused the various loans it has acquired, saying that all the loans received parliamentary approval.
Mr Mahama said if the minority NPP is now asking what the loans have been used for, then it means that the members of the party have been sleeping in Parliament.
“You say we haven’t used the loans for anything and that we are misusing monies. Meanwhile every loan we take is taken through Parliament for approval so what have they been doing? Have they been sleeping?
“They approve the loans in Parliament; there is no single loan we have taken without taking it through Parliament; they should come and tell us what they have been doing,” the president jabbed the NPP MPs at a rally in the Volta regional capital to round up his ‘Changing Lives’ tour.
John Mahama, in an attempt to refute claims that his administration has created more debts for Ghana than any other government, ended up affirming the claims.
According to him, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), since the time of the late President Atta Mills, has contributed 50 percent of the current external debts of Ghana since 1980.
He said the external debts alone amounts to $14 billion.
He explained that governments between 1980 and 2000 contributed nine percent while the New Patriotic Party government in eight years – from 2001 to 2008 – contributed 41%.
The current NDC government and that of Atta Mills have in seven years – from 2009 to 2015 – so far contributed 50%. This figure is higher than the debts contributed by the erstwhile NPP government which had eight years in power.
The NPP at the time of leaving power in 2009 left behind a total debt of GH¢9.5 billion but the Mahama administration, as at September 2015, had pushed it to GH¢92.1 billion; and more loans have been contracted within the last three months, pushing the debt profile further.
The debt contribution of the current government, which the president sought to defend, could actually go up since he has one more year to go. If the high spending phenomenon of election years is anything to go by, then the president may have shot himself in the foot.

Source: Daily Guide