Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, a former Minister under the Kufuor regime and Fifi Kwetey, Minister of State at the Presidency, have revealed deep-seated division of opinion on why the economy is facing difficulty.
Speaking on Joy FM, they both agreed the difficulties are real.
Mr. Kwetey who is Minister in charge of Financial and Allied Institutions at the Presidency identified the �fundamental� culprit � it was "a totally different public wage arrangement".
The nature of the challenge is structural, he noted.
It is because of the month-to-month payment of salaries, gratuities and pensions and even opposition NPP would face this challenge if they were in power, he suggested.
In his analysis, these difficulties are not new.It was the case in 2009, he recalled.
He catalogued that on a monthly basis the Ghana Cedi depreciated by 3%, inflation was 18%, investors were taking their money out of the economy and banks were facing debt payment problems.
But he continued these problems did not mean the economy had come to a standstill. The minister said government was going to surmount the challenges. His assurance was that this challenge had not come to stay.
He had words for the opposition�s criticism of the economy as "hogwash" and "in tatters".
That was a �petty, childish and politically jaundiced analysis�, Mr. Kwetey strongly retorted.Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, former Minister of Trade and Industry submitted that a burgeoning wage bill was not the real issue.
It was because the economy was contracting, he suggested. A contracting economy could not be the fault of the NPP, Dr. Apraku observed. He argued that borrowing GHC 38.5bn from a mere GHC 8bn in 2012 was also responsible for the ailing economy.
There is no free lunch, reminded the former Minister. He rebutted Fifi's suggestion that the problems facing the economy are not 'leftovers' from NPP. The economies ill-health was systemic, he assessed.
Interest rates have more than doubled in a year, and various sectors of the economy are plummeting, he charged. He recommended that government cut down its expenditure, reduce taxes on the private sector and incentivise it.
Government ought to arrest its "mind boggling" borrowing and spending spree, he suggested.
An independent view of Dr. Joe Abbey of the Centre for Policy Analysis(CEPA) was that, the budget deficit would not matter to him if borrowing was to solve the recurrent energy crisis.
He was not interested in a political debate because he said, it would not look for solutions.
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