Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has an enviable economic track record despite the ravaging effect of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Addressing teeming members of the NPP at the party’s National Delegates Conference in Kumasi on Sunday, the Vice President reiterated that COVID-19 has affected the cost of living virtually everywhere in the world and Ghana is not an exception.
“It is important to remind ourselves that notwithstanding the global adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic growth, debt levels, and deficits at the macro-economic level.
Notwithstanding all of these challenges inflation, today stands at 12. 2% which is lower than what it is in 2016 which was 15.4%.
“Average bank lending today at 21% is much better than what they were in 2016 at 32%. According to the Bank of Ghana, the average exchange rate depreciation over the last 4-years of our first term is the lowest for any first-time government since 1992. The year 2020 witnessed the lowest rate of depreciation of the currency in 28-years and cumulative exchange rate depreciation this year November 2021 stands at 6.2% in 2017 it was 9.7%,” he disclosed.
Vice President Bawumi further stated the NPP government has created over 750,000 jobs unlike their opponents the NDC who froze public sector recruitment.
“For the first time in over two decades’ trade balance, that is the difference between our import and export, recorded a surplus for four consecutive years. This year the data shows it will be five consecutive times notwithstanding COVID. Growth at the international reserve is 10.8 billion dollars,” he added.
