Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) running mate has hit hard at President Mahama again, describing his economy as a toxic waste waiting for explosion.
Lashing at the Mahama government for combining incompetence and corruption to create the toxic waste explosive economy, Dr. Bawumia said if Ghanaians commit the mistake of giving President Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) another term, the NDC would tax the air Ghanaians breathe to run the messed up economy.
Sounding quite vexed at the happenings in the country, Dr. Bawumia said: “What nonsense is this? If the NDC is not serious about the economy, I want to tell them here and today that, the NPP and Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo are very serious about it. Mahama and his incompetent government are joking with us, in fact.”
Addressing a charged gathering of NPP supporters in Tema on Saturday, Dr. Bawumia said instead of Mahama and his government growing the economy by putting exemptions on some imports, he had rather found every means to ‘steal’ every money Ghanaian businesses earn, including from the suffering citizen.
He said, today under the Mahama and his NDC government, Ghanaians pay GHC10.5 billion interest annually on the country’s annual debt of GHC99.9 billion, which he said could pay teachers’ and nursing trainees’ allowances for forty years.
“Instead of this government thinking of the Ghanaian and businesses, it further killed us with 17.5% VAT on electricity for industry…do you think the high electricity tariffs were not deliberate? “My brothers and sisters, the NDC and Mahama were taxing us to pay for debts it owes Ameri and Kar Power.”
Establishing that the NPP, under former President John Agyekum Kufuor, could pay both teachers’ and nursing trainees’ allowances, the NDC had ‘wickedly’ cancelled those allowances because they needed to settle the loans they had borrowed from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The NPP, under the government of Nana Addo and the NPP, Ghana would see a new economy where taxes on imports on raw materials and machinery would be removed, Dr. Bawumia stated.
“In the new economy, the NPP government would focus on growing the economy by shifting focus to production where more jobs would be created to enable the county raise the needed revenue to grow.
“Listen, a serious government needs to grow the economy to raise revenue, so former President Kufuor, under HIPC, reduced corporate tax rate from 32% that his government inherited from the first NDC to 25%, and that was the magic that helped the NPP to introduce all the social interventions the NDC and Mahama have been able to collapse.
“The high unemployment in the country is due to the many taxes we are all witnesses to…but there is hope in the NPP under Nana Addo.”
The difference between the NPP and NDC, he established, is philosophical and so with that NPP philosophy, the goal would be to make the economy a most business friendly one and with incentives to businesses to enable them grow, he explained further. Therefore, the NPP would give a tax break to businesses that would employ graduates.
Receiving thunderous applause from the gathering, the NPP running mate said: “If the NDC has been able to prioritise Woyome, SADA and bus branding, the NPP will prioritise the restoration of teachers and nursing trainees’ allowances in our first year. We will teach the NDC how to do a simple mathematical equation.
“There are a lot of vacancies to be filled and in the new economy; the NPP will fill all those vacant positions.” Dr. Bawumia was in the three constituencies of Tema in a first leg of his tour to unite the front of the executives in the three constituencies, and to call on the party faithful to remain resolute to the cause of the NPP, going into this year’s general elections.
He charged the supporters to herald the new economy message of the NPP and Nana Addo everywhere they would find themselves. Concluding, Dr. Bawumia said: “We are seeing off these toxic waste explosive economic managers this year, and by the grace of God, on January 7, 2017, Nana Addo will be sworn in as the President of Ghana. Ghana must brace itself for a turnaround.”
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