Borrowing: Mahama wants Akufo-Addo to apologise for misleading Ghanaians

The former president, John Mahama has said the president must apologise to Ghanaians for reneging on his campaign promise of not engaging in borrowing.

Mr Mahama who wants to lead his party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) again in the 2020 elections, is on a tour of the Greater Accra Region where he expressed surprise at the Akufo-Addo administration’s borrowing spree.

He said it was unbelievable that after lambasting his administration and promising not to borrow when elected into office, the almost two-year-old Akufo-Addo administration seems to have borrowed even more than they (NDC) did.

The former president’s comments come after President Akufo-Addo said at an entrepreneurship forum organised by the Tony Elumelo Foundation in Nigeria that, Ghana will continue to borrow to put up projects he described as assets.

Defending a $60 billion Chinese facility for Africa, of which Ghana is expected to benefit from, the president said “Borrowing money is not aid, what President Xi Jinping offered is a $60 billion fund which Africa countries can assess, not as aid but loans.

“If you can produce a project which the Chinese think it is worth supporting you can have access to such money and you have to pay it back. We’ll borrow money, everybody borrows money,” he added.

But Mr Mahama says the president has changed his tone and must apologise for leading Ghanaians on.

“They don’t understand. The problem is not that something is bad. Nobody ever said borrowing is bad, when we were in government we never said borrowing was bad. You borrow to invest in assets and everybody knows that and when we were in government we borrowed to invest in assets.

Source: Myjoy