Accra, July 8, GNA - The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Tuesday described as an unfortunate the attack of the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo on the NDC Presidential candidate for Election 2004, Professor John Evans Atta Mills.

The Minister, addressing Journalists in Accra on Tuesday, when he took his turn at the Meet-The-Press Series, said Prof Mills had falsified the report that Ghana was ranked among the least five attractive economic destinations among a total of 21 African countries studied by the World Economic Forum.

A statement from the NDC Presidential Campaign Centre, issued in Accra, and signed by Mr Rojo Mettle-Nunoo, Director of Communication said, "The source of that information is the Daily Graphic of June 13 2003. The story which appeared on page 5 was not challenged or disputed by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning even though it was given wide publicity by the print and electronic media."

It said Mr Osafo-Maafo, in a press statement earlier in the day confirmed the nation's total indebtedness stood at 63 trillion cedis as stated by Prof Mills.

The statement said incidentally, the 63 trillion cedis debt was arrived at, using the same method the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government used to arrived at the 41 trillion cedis debt when it assumed office in January 2001.

The increase of 22 trillion cedis, the NDC Campaign Centre said, represented over 50 per cent increase in the nation's debt stock in only two and half years of the NPP administration.

In the case of domestic debt, the release said Mr Osafo-Maafo, conceded that an increase of 4.6 trillion cedis in the then last two and half years but attributed mainly to the absorption of debts owed by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and Tema Oil Refinery.

"Typically, the Finance Minister deliberately ignores an important fact: that the January 2001 domestic debts also included bad debts on the books of banks, (commonly referred to as Non Performing Assets), End of Service obligations of workers both in the Public Service and divested commercial enterprises, all of which were absorbed by the previous government.

The statement noted that the calculation of the farmers share of the cocoa price had never been included in the in those other expenditures as construction of feeder roads in cocoa growing areas, scholarship for education, disease and pest control and the introduction of "so called " hi-tech cocoa growing techniques.

Such expenditures, it said, were normally borne by Central government.

The release said the world market price of the 1650 per tonne of cocoa quoted by Mr Osafo-Maafo ignored three inter-related factors, the first of which was that substantially high prices had been recorded on the world market during the current cocoa season.

"Second, Ghana earns a premium because of the higher quality of our cocoa beans," it said, adding that thirdly the Cocoa Marketing Company was reputed to have a forward sales marketing strategy which earned Ghana more on the world market.

The NDC Presidential Campaign Centre said the concern expressed by Prof Mills was over the actual share of the world market price that went to the cocoa farmer.

"The addition of other expenditure items in the calculation of the producer price paid to the cocoa farmer just to arrive at a higher percentage for obvious propaganda purposes is misleading", the release said.

It said the Minister was completely silent on the issues of "severe and intolerable economic hardships afflicting the population and corruption within the NPP Government

The NDC Presidential Campaign Centre said it would issue a detailed reaction to the Finance Ministers statement in due course.