Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has emphasized the need to remind Ghanaians that Ghana’s economy was among the fastest-growing in the world from 2017 to 2019, prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Ahiagbah highlighted that during this period, the government introduced several pro-poor policies, including the implementation of the free senior high school program.
Despite the economic impacts of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, he noted that Ghana has made significant progress in addressing economic challenges. He expressed confidence that the NPP will win this year’s general elections to continue their development programs.
“The World Bank declared Ghana as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, not Africa between 2027 and 2019 then Covid came to hit the global economy. It is always important to tell Ghanaians where we have come from,” he told journalists in Kumasi on Monday, June 24.
He stressed that “The NPP will win the elections this year because we have done it before and we know how to do it, we admit that times are had but we are turning the corner.
“The economy has picked up in the first quarter of this expanding 4.7 percent, with this, it shows that progressively we are moving forward.”
According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Ghana’s GDP increased by 4.7% in volume terms in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. When seasonally adjusted, real GDP grew by 1.2% in the first quarter of 2024, up by 0.2 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2023.
Key growth drivers in Quarter 1 2024 included Mining & Quarrying (12.9%), Information & Communication (17.9%), Crops (4.3%), Construction (8.2%), and Accommodation and Food Service Activities (9.4%). However, five sub-sectors contracted in the fourth quarter of 2023: Health (-8.8%), Electricity (-7.5%), Public Administration (-5.3%), Education (-4.9%), Other Personal Service Activities (-2.9%), and Forestry & Logging (-1.2%).
GDP growth, the primary indicator of economic performance, is measured using three approaches: the output approach, the expenditure approach, and the income approach.