The National Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah has advised journalists to be contextual in their conversations about the country’s economy.

This, he believes would give Ghanaians a fair idea and opportunity to determine which political party has the capability and credibility to better manage the country’s economy.

He was speaking at a media encounter in Ho with selected journalists from across the Volta Region.

He entreated media practitioners not to only give their platforms to members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to criticize the government on its economic performance but question them on their alternate measures to recover the economy.

“When you create the context, then you ask, ‘What is the government doing to solve the problem because it has happened?' And when we [NPP] say whatever we are doing and then the other party would say no no no, and then you ask ‘what would you do?’”, he said.

He further indicated that a one-sided conversation of chastising the government could cause the party in an election that would see the NDC - which has nothing to offer - assuming power.

Mr Ahiagbah, however, asserted that the governing NPP are “better managers” of the country's economy, comparing its performance against that of the NDC.

“So the image you get if you are doing this contextual conversation is that, anytime the NDC is in power, Ghana’s economy is worse. And anytime the NPP is in power, the economy grows”, he stressed.

He recounted that the NPP in 2001 inherited an ailing economy due to the bad management of the NDC under the administration of the late President Rawlings.

He described how the Kufuor administration had to adopt the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, a debt re-profiling program "to delay payment of the country’s loan" in 2004 to help restructure the economy.

He asserted that the economy saw growth in 2011 after the NPP lost power to the NDC in 2008, basically because the country raked in some revenue from oil production.

“In 2009 when they came to office, they inherited a growing economy, what were they able to do with that? They will tell you that in 2011, they achieved a 14% GDP [Gross Domestic Product]
growth, yes, that was on the back of an oil discovery that started production in 2010”, he said.

He explained that oil production accounted for 11% of the GDP growth, “and from there on, the economy went deep all the way down”.

He added that the John Mahama government failed to build on that growth, leading to the economy depreciating from 14% to 3.8% in 2015, until President Akufo-Addo and the NPP won the 2016 general election on the back of a campaign anchored on the deteriorating economy under the NDC.

He said the Akufo-Addo administration implemented the necessary measures to restore the economy, which started experiencing growth until COVID-19 struck in 2019.

This he said affected the global economy, leading to increasing inflation, low GDP, and high cost of living.

Though Ghana has seen slower economic growth in 2023, the government in the 2023 mid-year budget assured some growth before the close of the year.