Alhaji Huudu Yayha says foreign powers contributed to make the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lose the presidential elections to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the year 2000.

The former General Secretary and now National Vice Chairman of the NDC told Bernard Avle, host of Citi FM’s Breakfast Show that even though he was surprised that the NDC lost the elections in 2000, apart from foreign interference, there were other genuine factors that also contributed to the loss.

Alhaji Huudu Yahya who served as the General Secretary of the NDC for 10 years, said there was electorate fatigue, and a section of the society wanted to see change.

“At that time the international economic situation did not favour us. All of a sudden there was a deficit of more than US$300 million in terms of what we had budgeted for and what we were receiving.” He said.

He recounted that at that time all gold producing countries were in economic crisis.

“The IMF, the World Bank and some British banks had offloaded gold unto the world market. And you remember Obuasi itself was affected and had to lay off some of its workers.” He said.

He cited South Africa and Australia where a number of mines closed down and some mine workers were laid off. He said at that time gold prices dropped to about US$265 per ounce unlike now where it is more than a thousand dollars per ounce.

Alhaji Yahya said the price of cocoa also dropped to less than a thousand dollars per ton, and came to about US$625 per ton. These days, he said cocoa is over US$2000 per ton.

He recounted that the price of crude oil had more than doubled. According to Alhaji Yahya, while the NDC government’s receipt had tumbled, expenditure went up in terms of crude oil price increase.

He revealed that a diplomat from the British High Commission who was in the country at that time was sometimes making statements that were sending bad signals about the NDC government.

“I remember I was at a meeting with him one time and I had to raise objections.” He said.

Asked if he thought the British and the American governments were tired with the NDC government, he answered, “I wouldn’t say yes for now, but of course you don’t rule out international interests, because we are not living in isolation and every country is fighting for its interests.”

He agreed with Bernard that there were insinuations that some of these countries wanted to see a regime change in Ghana.

He also attributed the yawning budget deficit the NDC government had to contend with at that time due to insufficient inflows from the donor community.

The NDC Vice Chairman revealed that Dr. Josiah Aryeh, Don Arhur, Yaw Akrasi Sarpong, Dr. Christine, Rebecca Adotey, Ibrahim Adam and Quainu Mettle are still active in the NDC, even though they may not be holding high office.

He revealed that Ibrahim Adam, one time Agriculture Minister in the NDC regime, who went to jail over the Aveyime Rice project case is back into farming which he was doing before he entered active politics.