General News of Thursday, 23 February 2017

Source: starrfmonline.com

SONA: Nana Addo’s address empty - Amissah-Arthur

Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, former Vice President at President Akufo-Addo's maiden SONA Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, former Vice President at President Akufo-Addo's maiden SONA

Former Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur has described President Akufo-Addo’s state of the nation address delivered in Parliament Tuesday as one that contained nothing, but a list of problems.

Nana Akufo-Addo in his address cautioned Ghanaians to get ready for tough times as his government works to revive the weak economy he inherited from the previous NDC administration led by former President John Mahama.

He also disclosed that his predecessor had left a heavily indebted power sector which threatens sustainable power supply.

“The attempts by the previous government to resolve the dumsor crisis have led to a gargantuan debt overhang in the sector…we have inherited a heavily indebted energy sector, with the net debt reaching 2.4 billion US dollars as at December 2016.

“I have to point out the alarming fact that 800 million US dollars of this debt is owed to local banks, which threatens their stability. Huge indebtedness of the energy sector constitutes the single major hurdle to Ghanaians enjoying reliable and affordable electricity supply,” the President said.

Reacting to the address, Mr. Amissah–Arthur told Starr News the President has a lot to learn if he is to achieve anything.

“It was quite good and a statement of the problems that the country faced, I’m not sure whether he told us how he was going to solve them because he stated many problems and I don’t get the sense of where the direction he wants to go”.