The New Patriotic Party Parliamentary candidate for New Juaben South Constituency in the Eastern Region, Dr. Mark Asibey-Yeboah has said that the National Democratic Congress government was pushing Ghana back to a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC). According to him, Ghana’s total debt which stood at GHC25.8 billion in April has now increased to GHC28.3 billion as at July, 2012. He said as per the statistics and facts available to him, Ghana was likely to increase its total debt burden to GHC35 billion by December 2012, which implies that the economy is heading towards a ditch. The former senior economist at the Bank of Ghana, made this disclosure when he addressed members of TESCON, and students of the All Nations University College in Koforidua last Friday. He described the NDC as the only administration in Ghana’s history that has borrowed heavily than any other administration. He said Ghana’s total debt from the Kwame Nkrumah administration through to former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration stood at GHC9 billion as at the end of 2008, but the Mills-Mahama-Amissah-Arthur administration has trebled the debt to GHC 28.3 billion within three years in office. He criticized the policy of the NDC saying that “it is only in their world of economics that the inflation rate can be single digit but the Treasury Bill rate stays over 22%”. “Even level 100 economics teaches us that, when inflation attains a single digit like the 9% we are supposed to have, the cost of borrowing should hover around 15%. And they want us to believe that we have achieved a single digit inflation rate?” Dr. Asibey-Yeboah asked.