Razak Kojo Opoku, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party has disputed claims by the venerable Sam Jonah that the country’s future looks bleak with the continued borrowing by the government.

Sir Sam Jonah at an event expressed worry over the rising rate of the public debt and appealed to the government to control its borrowing.

Reacting to this claim, Razak Kojo Opoku who is the founder of the Concerned Voters Movement said he was shocked by the assertions of the senior citizen.

A statement signed by the Public Relations practitioner said, “I find this gloom-ridden statement as unfortunate and inapt, especially as it is emanating from an individual who is being described in the media circles as a senior citizen Mr. Sam Jonah should have used this opportunity better than he did.”

“For records, it is absolutely false that the government continues to borrow hugely to spend, plunging the country into a debt crisis,” the statement said.

Giving a historical context to the debt situation, Razak said the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia administration inherited huge debt but has done well to curb its rise.

“Heavily capital intensive projects such as One-District-One-Factory, One-Village-One-Dam, Planting for Food and Jobs, One-Constituency-One-Ambulance, Railway Infrastructure, Digitization and Digitalization of the Ghanaian economy are all projects that are financed by the bonds raised by the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia’s government”.

The statement said Mr Sam Jonah should have at least shown appreciation to the good initiatives implemented by the government aimed at formalizing the economy, ensuring a fast rate of development in all the areas of the economy and positioning Ghana to compete fairly and squarely with the advanced economies.

“We all know the effects of the COVID-19 on the world economy and Ghana in particular. The government of Akufo-Addo-Bawumia provided free water, free electricity and free food to Ghanaians. At the same time, about 88 district hospitals are being constructed to transform the healthcare system in Ghana.
“All these efforts are supported by the bonds and the domestic revenue generation efforts of Akufo-Addo-Bawumia’s government”.

It added that it was very sad and even regrettable to read Mr Sam Jonah’s commentary on the mining industry and that historical records on Ghana’s mining seriously do not even favour Sam Jonah’s contributions to the particular sector of the economy.

“Mr San Jonah did not put any measures in place to prevent Galamsey in Obuasi when he was the President/Chief Executive Officer of Ashanti Goldfields Corporation and did not put any efforts to transform the Obuasi mining community”.

“Currently, senior citizen Sam Jonah is the owner and Executive Chairman of Jonah Capital, an equity fund based in Johannesburg, South Africa and if he means well for the country’s economic transformation, he wouldn’t have set up and operated his company in South Africa”.

The statement said Mr Sam Jonah pays the majority of his taxes, including corporate taxes to the government of South Africa to the detriment of Ghana’s government and question how Mr Sam Jonah want the government of Ghana to stop borrowing if he is continuously investing in the South African economy and paying taxes to the South African government ratter than Ghana.