"NDC reduced inflation to single digit"
Former Vice-President John Atta-Mills has said the reduction in the inflationary rate of the country is not new, since the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government was able, at a point in time during its management of the economy, to reduce it to a single digit.
He said the NDC government had little control over the increase in the rate of inflation during the last two years of its eight-year reign due to unfavourable developments in the global economy which stretched the country’s resources considerably.
Prof Mills, who said this in an interview in Accra yesterday, explained that favourable economic conditions, such as good prices for the country’s export commodities, massive reduction in crude oil prices and good climatic conditions, are some of the crucial factors that assist a government to reduce inflationary rate to a reasonable degree.
According to Prof Mills, some of these factors, in addition to other sound and stringent policies initiated by the NDC government, enabled it to reduce inflation to a single digit, which assisted immensely the manufacturing sector and commerce and improved the material conditions of the people.
Prof Mills said what makes the achievement of the NDC government more spectacular than that of the NPP is that “we were able to reduce inflation from a very higher percentage than what the NPP government came to meet”.
He conceded that even though the Kufuor administration has reduced inflation, the social cost of its economic policies on the vast majority of the people has been woefully ignored.
The former Vice-President said the NDC government has been vindicated in the sense that the measures being pursued by the present administration to move the economy forward have striking similarities to what the NDC pursued and are also IMF-driven.
“We are taken aback in the sense that the government is pursuing, with unbridled zeal, the same policies that it criticised us vehemently when it was in opposition,” Prof Mills said.
He described the performance of the government as average and said even though it has introduced a few interventions to bring relief to the people, the mass of them are still smarting under poverty.
Prof Mills expressed his dissatisfaction over government’s treatment of former government functionaries, stressing that it’s ironic that it is resorting to personalising issues which involve those who implemented policy decisions of the former government.
The former Vice-President said while not holding brief for former state functionaries, he sincerely believes that the right things must be done to avoid setting a precedent that future governments will also employ in their activities.
He said there is the need for the government to avoid factionalising the nation through its policies since it needs the contribution of each Ghanaian, irrespective of his political association, to move ahead.
He said the doctrine of “ those who are not with us are against us” will negatively affect and undermine the government’s quest to reconcile the nation and heal the wounds of the past.
