A Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Fifi Kwetey has described as a big indictment, the decision of the erstwhile Kufuor government to take Ghana to HIPC.
According to him, declaring Ghana as a Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) nation shows the government at the time lacked ideas on how to manage the economy of the country.
He stressed that HIPC was the wrong option taken by the Kufuor administration in the early stages of 2001 to salvage the economy from a so-called bad economy bequeathed by the then outgoing NDC government.
Ghana under Kufuor Government in 2001 joined the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) an initiative, a framework for multilateral partnerships for development.
The Government received various funds under the arrangement for poverty alleviation and infrastructural development.
However, speaking on Asempa FM?s Ekosii Sen on Thursday, Fifi Kwetey argued that the decision to go HIPC was one of the poorest decisions ever taken by the NPP government in 2001.
?The decision to go HIPC is a big indictment to me as a Ghanaian. It showed the lack of capacity of the NPP to think and have solutions to so called economic mess they inherited. The NPP administration used the HIPC to lie to Ghanaians that the Rawlings government left Ghana in a worst state?.
He noted that Ghana going HIPC did not help at all because the NPP at the end of their tenure of office in 2008 quadrupled the size of the country?s debt stock.
He said the NPP failed to achieve what they thought the HIPC would bring the country.
?The NPP cannot today point to roads, railways, hospitals, schools the HIPC brought to Ghanaians. They used the HIPC to source for $US750 million fund from international market but blew and wasted it? Fifi asserted.
Mr. Fifi Kwetey said when a country is declared HIPC, it shows the country is unable to think and loses dignity in the sight of the world.?As a HIPC state, you lose your dignity as a country. The HIPC left Ghana in a worse state than what the NPP inherited in 2001?.
He stressed that declaring oneself as a HIPC state restrains the country from sourcing other funds than the HIPC funds. ?You forfeit with looking out for other source of funding because you have already told the whole world that you are poor and cannot think. So Kufuor did us bad than good by declaring Ghana a HIPC nation because it did not benefit any Ghanaian but rather an embarrassment?.
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