President John Evans Atta Mills on Wednesday dispelled rumours that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) was alleging that figures on the economy it inherited from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration were "cooked."
He disagreed to a suggestion that the figures were a "creative accounting" and explained that statistics presented on the economy did not mirror the effects on the ordinary Ghanaians.
President Mills gave the explanation in an interview with Shaka Ssali on the Voice of America's Straight Talk on Africa programme at the Castle Osu, in Accra. The interview comes ahead of the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Ghana on July 10 and 11. President Mills said as a government, there was no need to run away from candour despite the wish of some people that government swept things under the carpet.
Some pundits in the opposition NPP have doubted claims of the NDC that it inherited a 15 per cent budget deficit. The President said the NDC met challenges of unpaid debts on oil, under which opening letters of credit was problematic, but added that light was being seen at the end of the tunnel. President Mills said there were two to three years deficit, which meant that the then government was spending more than it was collecting. He said the NDC administration was in the process of putting its act together and that the World Bank had granted Ghana a loan of $335 million.
President Mills said this gesture alone would not solve all the economic problems of the country but indicated that there were positive signals for the revamping of the economy. He appealed to Ghanaians to have confidence in the government and be patient with it to deliver on its promises of ensuring a better Ghana. President Mills said he would not attempt to abuse the 1992 constitution and promised to stick to his promise of using the country's resources to the benefit of Ghanaians.
While insisting on his "father for all" maxim, the President promised to adopt a holistic approach to improve educational institutions, saying as President, he is an old boy, not only of his alma mater, Achimota School, but every school in Ghana. President Mills reiterated his commitment to the rule of law without condoning criminality and said that he would allow due process of law to take place and not infringe on the rights of individuals.
He said in 2001 the BNI invited his wife Naadu and she spent more than three hours there and added that he supported the investigative role of the BNI. The President said he would always support BNI's invitations to people so far as they were within the confines of the law, adding that BNI invitations did not amount to political witch-hunting.
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