The New Patriotic Party says claims that it mismanaged the economy and left the country reeling in debts cannot be true. Vice President John Mahama at a public lecture to mark 17 years of the birth of the National Democratic Congress said the state of the economy is worse than earlier thought. The national debt stock, as well as debts owed by strategic public institutions like TOR, according to the vice president, is stifling. The budget deficit, he intimated is inching towards 20 per cent instead of the 15 per cent earlier stated in the 2009 budget statement. But the Communications Director of the NPP, Kweku Kwarteng in an interview with Joy News’ Stephen Anti said the vice president may have been misled by his economic advisors, adding, “he is not on top of the facts.” He said the NDC instead of accusing the previous government for non-performance must rather emulate the strategy the NPP adopted to steer economic growth to 7.3 per cent last year, the highest in more than thirty years. Public debt he alleged, has overgrown to 10 billion cedis in just six months of assumption of the NDC government, with inflation hitting a five year high. Borrowing the call by the party’s flag-bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, the former Spokesperson on Finance, Mr. Kwarteng, charged government to fix the challenges facing the economy. Reminded of the vice-president's call for the need first to diagnose the problems before fixing them, Kwarteng retorted that government had kept too long. He wondered why the 2009 Budget was presented, when government had not finished diagnosing the problem. Mr. Kwarteng took a swipe at the ex-First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings who had accused the NPP of abuse of power. “Was she not the woman who supervised the identification haircut, and she has the moral authority to suggest that the administration of President Kufuor was any more brutal than the government in which she was an important member?” Listen to excerpts of the interview with Mr. Kwarteng in the attached audio. Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com