NDC tells ‘True State of the Nation’

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said President Akufo-Addo did not give an honest account of the current situation in Ghana during the State of the Nation (SONA) address he gave to Parliament in March 8, therefore the party would this afternoon hold a programme to tell what it has described as the “True State of the Nation”.

The event, planned for 2 O’ clock this afternoon at the University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA) in Accra and will have the official address delivered by the Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah.

“The general public is cordially invited to the True State of the Nation Address (TSONA) that comes off on Monday, 20th March, 2022”, Sammy Gyamfi, National Communications Officer of the NDC announced on his social media pages.

The party released official flyers announcing the event.

Deep throats say the NDC hopes to use the event to convince Ghanaian that the Nana Akufo-Addo led Government has a good number of his family members and close friends who have become power drunk and taken many decisions that have not helped the country.

In terms of specifics, the address is expected to touch on Ghana’s current debt situation as compared to when the NPP took over government and the chain of decisions that has sent Ghana’s economy on its knees begging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout.

Akufo-Addo Explains

Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo, in his March 8 SONA, argued that prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, all empirical indicators pointed in the direction that the country was doing well.

“I have said, and many others, including the Managing Director of the IMF, have said that our economy was doing well until COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine took us off course.

“Maybe, because of the severity of the present difficulties, or maybe because it suits their preconceived agenda, some people are unwilling to accept that we were on a good trajectory until the arrival of COVID-19. The Ghanaian people, however, accepted this proposition, as evidenced in the results of the 2020 presidential election, which were unanimously endorsed and upheld by the seven-member panel of the Supreme Court.,” Akufo-Addo said.

He continued: “we have spent money on things that are urgent, to build roads and bridges and schools, to train our young people and equip them to face a competitive world. Considering the amount of work that still needs to be done on the state of our roads, the bridges that have to be built, considering the number of classrooms that need to be built, the furniture and equipment needs at all stages of education, considering the number of children who should be in school and are not, considering the number of towns and villages that still do not have access to potable water, I daresay no one can suggest we have over borrowed or spent recklessly.”

President Akufo-Addo said the two-pronged crisis resulted in the currency buffeting, inflation shot up very high and, for the first time in the life of the country, “debt exchanges have become the language of everyday conversations”.

Critical Week

Today Monday begins the most critical week for Ghana in her quest to secure approval of some US$3 billion IMF bailout to save the economy from a complete paralysis.

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta’s visit has left to China Addis Ababa from where he would continue to China to jaw-jaw and lobby for aid to resuscitate the ailing economy.

Tomorrow Tuesday march 21 is the meeting of the Paris Club to decide how fast and whether or not Ghana can secure the mush needed IMF bailout.

The on Thursday, Parliament would be voting on the ‘revenue bills’ – the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, the Excise Duty & Excise Tax Stamp (Amendment) Bills and the Growth and Sustainability Levy Bill – which as a matter of necessity must be passed to indicate Ghana’s seriousness and doing better than being below the continental average on revenue mobilisation.