The National Democratic Congress (NDC), has defended its flagbearer John Dramani Mahama, for stating that Ghana is heading towards becoming a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC).

In a press conference, the Communications Director of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi stated that Ghana’s debt position is currently worse than it was when the country joined the HIPC debt relief program in the year 2001.

According to him, former President John Dramani Mahama, was very charitable to the Akufo Addo-government when he asserted that Ghana is back to its former HIPC status.

Sammy Gyamfi stated that even though the International Monetary Fund’s HIPC debt relief program has ended, Ghana is now a lower-middle-income country.

“In the year 2001, Ghana’s debt to GDP ratio stood at 61% and in 2020, our debt to GDP ratio is 76.7%. This is highly unsustainable and worse than where we were 19 years ago when we joined the HIPC program,” he said.

Sammy Gyamfi challenged the Akufo-Addo-led administration to provide a description for Ghana's current economic status in view of its debt to GDP ratio of 76.7% since according to him, the New Patriotic Party is in denial of the current statistics.

"If they described Ghana as a “Highly Indebted Lower Middle Income Country (HIMIC)” in March 2015, when our debt to GDP was just about 55%, what would they describe the increase to 68.3% which is projected by the IMF to hit 76.7% by December this year," he said

He criticized the Akufo-Addo government for not being able to reduce government's borrowing in order to improve the country's debt sustainability position as the NPP had promised in their 2016 manifesto.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo has added more debt, totalling GHS138 billion and counting to Ghana’s Public Debt in only three (3) and half years, far more than any government has done in the history of this country, since independence.

The Communications Director also stated that per our current total Public Debt of GHS 258.8 billion as of June 2020, every Ghanaian in Ghana today is indebted to the tune of about GHS10,000.