The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says the attempt by the President Akufo-Addo-government to blame the country’s ever-worsening debt position on COVID-19 was untenable and laughable.

The Party said this was because, the country’s public debt was already increasing at an alarming rate and had reached unsustainable levels, with a debt to GDP ratio of 63 per cent, even before the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

Mr Samuel Gyamfi, National Communications Officer, NDC, speaking at the Party’s weekly press briefing said “the claim by government’s spokespersons that COVID-19 is what has accounted for our current unsustainable and catastrophic debt situation, is not borne out by the facts.”

He claimed that what was even sad and bizarre about the unsustainable and catastrophic debt situation President Akufo-Addo had plunged Ghana into, was that the government could not show any significant or self-financing projects for it.

“Whereas President Mahama can boast of commencing the construction of 123 new Community Day Senior High Schools (E-Blocks), 46 of which he fully completed, President Akufo Addo cannot boast of a single secondary school he has built since 2017, despite his unprecedented borrowings,” he said.

He said President Akufo-Addo had abandoned most of the infrastructural projects he inherited from the erstwhile Mahama government to rot.

He appealed to Ghanaians to kick out the President Akufo-Addo led-government and vote for Mr John Mahama.

Mr Gyamfi said when voted into power, Mr Mahama would restore the country to the path of growth, development and true progress.

He opined that there was no gainsaying the fact that the country’s current debt position, debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio of 76.7 per cent was highly unsustainable and exceeded the acceptable debt threshold.

The National Communications Officer said the country’s current debt position was worse than where “we are when we joined the HIPC debt relief programme in the year 2001, at which time our debt to GDP ratio stood at 61 per cent.”