Deputy Finance Minister, Fifi Kwetey says he is surprised at the level to which Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has gone to distort facts about the true state of the economy. Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), cast doubts over the “unprecedented” economic achievements touted by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the Ferdinand Ayim Memorial Lectures in Accra, Wednesday. He said the NDC government is lacking ideas and has resorted to the use of propaganda to manage the economy. But the Deputy Finance Minister, who said Dr Bawumia has displayed a certain amount of shallowness in his appreciation of economic issues, disagreed. He said the NPP left behind a weak economy in 2008, which brought in its wake a rapid depreciation of the currency and a high inflation rate. The NPP also depleted the reserves of the nation and left arrears of 38 trillion old cedis, he added. Fifi Kwetey further explained that the Mills-led administration was able to contain the speedy fall in the cedi by July 2009 despite the massive rot they met in office. From July to December that same year, he said, the nation witnessed a continuous currency appreciation. “It shows that this is a government that has the skills to (deliver).” If Dr Bawumia wants to play ostrich, the minister said, “Maybe let us help remind him that in 2008, under his watch and that of the NPP, the currency depreciated by 20 percent and I can tell you the only reason that it stopped at 20 percent is that they desperately had to sell Ghana Telecom and also had to deplete the reserves of the country...” He wondered why Dr Bawumia would ask the government to list its major programmes whilst the NPP could not cite any reform they instituted in their first term of office. “Can he (Bawumia) name one major reform his government put in place in the first four years? No, he cannot.”