The Member of Parliament for Kwabre East Constituency, Honourable Onyina-Acheampong Akwasi Gyamfi, has defended the economic management of former President Nana Akufo-Addo, saying the 2024 Annual Public Debt Report shows Ghana’s economy was recovering after major global shocks.
Speaking in an interview, the MP said the report compared 2023 and 2024 and showed a “marked improvement” in key indicators after the challenges of the COVID-19 era.
Onyinah-Acheampong recalled that from 2021, the government kept public sector workers on full pay despite low productivity during COVID lockdowns, creating a GH¢12 billion financing gap.
“Because you were not creating jobs, productivity is low; that means you didn’t have money. Growth dropped. Because of that, you needed to borrow money to finance the economy,” he said. He quoted the former President: “We know how to bring the economy back, but we don’t know how to bring lives back.”
The MP said that foresight produced results in 2024 with GDP growth having risen from 3.1% to 5.7%, while cedi depreciation improved by about 7% against the dollar, 14.1% against the pound, and 16% against the euro.
He also pointed to the financial sector clean-up, saying the government used public funds to cushion collapsed banks “so people’s livelihoods were supported.”
He argued that, unlike the current global pressures of Iran-Israel tensions and US policy shifts, the NPP government faced COVID and the Russia-Ukraine war, yet still sustained the economy, stressing, “People did not suffer too much,” he said, though he admitted the government had to “bite the bullet” with the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme and external debt restructuring to create fiscal space.
On inflation, he noted it fell from “fifty-something percent” to 23% in 2024, with forecasts of a further drop to about 8%. “It is not like this government is doing so much magic.
The good thing for them is that they’ve come to meet the meat and they are chewing it,” he said, suggesting the NDC administration was benefiting from trends already set.
He further accused the NDC of using the difficult measures in 2024 as campaign tools, adding that decisions like DDEP and debt restructuring were unpopular with Ghanaians at the time, but were necessary to restore stability and growth.
The MP concluded that the 2024 debt report vindicates the NPP’s approach: absorbing shocks, protecting livelihoods, and laying the foundation for recovery, insisting that without those “drastic decisions,” Ghana would not have seen the growth and currency improvements recorded last year.
By Prosper Kwaku Selassy Agbitor
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