President Nana Akufo-Addo has said the economy his government inherited from the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) could not have sustained expenditures incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The president argued that the economy, had it not been strengthened in the last three years, would not have been able to provide free electricity, water, meals and insurance package for frontline health workers as well as stimulus packages for Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.
“All of these measures are indications of the strength of the Ghanaian economy before the pandemic and this is the strength that has been built up in a very short period of time since we came to office, the economy we inherited could never have paid for these things. The money was just simply not there, we have built a strong economy and we want to keep the strong economy going,” President Akufo-Addo noted.
Responding to a critique that the 2020 mid-year budget focuses on expenditure rather than financing the country’s deficit, President Akufo-Addo indicated that, issues of deficit had been put aside all over the world due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“If we continue to insist on maintaining a budget deficit below five per cent, it would be very difficult to deal with the pandemic,” the president asserted during a radio interview on Koforidua-based Sunrise FM.
According to him, the most critical issue is how to generate resources needed to revive and strengthen the economy after the pandemic.
Touching on the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, President Akufo-Addo noted that he believes the NPP has a good chance of retaining power due to the many excellent policies implemented by his government.