NPP economic policy direction not different from NDC - Pratt

In assessing the achievements of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in government over the last twelve months, Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr., Editor of the Weekly Insight has said that the fundamental and structural economic policies being pursued by the ruling party are not different from those pursued by the past NDC government.

“Regarding the economy, the structural policies being implemented are substantially not different from the NDC’s”, Pratt Jnr. told Ghana Review International (GRi), a magazine based in London, UK. According to him, “there is no paradigm shift,” and living conditions remain the same.

Referring to the much-touted stability of the cedi, Pratt Jnr. apparently gave the NDC government the credit saying, “the whole process of the cedi stabilization started in September 2000.”

He said, “the National Economic Planning Team, sometime in May 2000 or earlier prompted the government to remove any props on the cedi, which was overvalued leading to its huge fall”. Pratt Jnr. noted that “as soon as the policy disaster was recognized, stabilization remedies were adopted and those actions are today’s benefits.”

He asserted, “we can’t therefore talk of the stability as an NPP achievement”.

Pratt Jnr. acknowledged the tremendous improvement in Ghana’s relationship with her neighbours. “That’s a plus for the government,” said he.

But he condemned the NPP government for worsening the access to tertiary education. According to him, “students going to do medicine for instance would pay ?14.7 million per annum. This is inhibitive and more than 90 per cent of the people including the President, cannot afford it according to the figures he gave at his maiden press conference as his legitimate income.”

He chastised the President for his travels, saying they were too many and seemed not to be yielding any results in terms of investments, as had been the case with ex-President Rawlings’ era.