Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Friday, September 09, 2016
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) vice presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu
Bawumia, says President John Dramani Mahama and his National Democratic
Congress (NDC) government have failed woefully, adding that it would be
suicidal for Ghanaians to renew the president’s mandate on December 7.
Dr. Bawumia, a distinguished economist, delivering a lecture titled, “The
State of the Ghanaian Economy – A Foundation of Concrete or Straw,” yesterday
in Accra, shredded the NDC’s touted economic performance, saying the ruling
party is rather taking Ghana backwards with its policies, citing declining
growth rate of 14 percent inherited by John Mahama, to the current 3 percent.
He insisted that the Mahama administration has been incompetent and
corrupt, promising that the NPP will root out corruption, allow Ghanaians to
have value for money and protect the public purse.
“Despite having more resources than any government ever in the history
of Ghana, the data on Ghana’s economy shows that the years under President John
Mahama have been worse than any period since the dawn of this century,” he observed
at the heavily attended programme held at the National Threatre in Accra.
Dr Bawumia’s lecture caught public
attention as Accra went dead with residents glued to their radio sets to listen
to the erudite economist and running mate to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who
was also at the event to give moral support.
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor, who
chaired the function, said even though economics is a technical subject, Dr
Bawumia made it easier for everybody to understand.
One Chief, One Car
Ghanaians, Dr Bawumia stressed, have a choice to make: if they want
their leader to be sharing cars to individuals at the expense of the people or
a leader who will create employment opportunities.
“One leader may prefer ‘one village one dam;’ the other may prefer ‘one
chief one car...’ It is all a matter of choices,” he stated.
The NPP vice presidential candidate said,
“Virtually every single economic indicator proves that while the eight years
under the NPP between 2001 to 2008 were better than these last eight years
under the NDC, the NDC’s first four years under the late President Mills was
even far better than these last four years under President Mahama.”
Foundation Hoax
He said President Mahama has been
economical with the truth when telling Ghanaians about the state of the economy,
wondering how long it would take to build a foundation - since 2009.
Using hard facts and data in his diagnosis
of the economy, Dr. Bawumia said, “President Mahama likes to say ‘strong foundation’
when he doesn’t mean it,” asking, “How many foundations is President Mahama
going to lay? How can you go back to build a foundation after you have
supposedly taken off? They really must think we have very short memories or
that we don’t read!”
He said for instance, that on August 30,
2012, President Mahama said in Sunyani that the NDC government for the past
three-and-a-half years had been laying the foundation for a transformational
take-off of the country’s development and on December 5, same year, the
president reiterated the solid foundation supposedly laid, quoting him as
saying, “We have taken off and we want to soar.”
Dr Bawumia posited, “So, according to President
Mahama and the NDC, they had laid a solid foundation between 2008 and 2012 and
the country had taken off.
In 2016, President Mahama is again telling us that
he ‘has now laid a very solid foundation for the economy and it is ready for
takeoff.’ Give him another four years and he will come back to lay another
strong foundation!”
Worst Period
“The fact is that the worst period of
economic performance since 2001 has been under President Mahama’s stewardship
between 2012 and 2016. This is therefore, a very weak foundation. It is a
foundation of straw masked with concrete.” Dr. Bawumia insisted.
He said the hard truth is that the
foundation for Ghana’s economic boom was laid by the Kufuor government
(2001-2008) and added, “President Mahama has spent the last eight years
destroying this foundation, replacing it rather with a weak foundation of straw
which he desperately tries to portray as one of concrete.”
“A mason who inherits a good foundation
and spends eight years destroying it cannot be trusted to build the house. We
need a competent mason, a mason with integrity, credibility and vision to build
the house with the help of the Almighty God.”
Dire Situation
Dr. Bawumia said that the economic
situation that the Mahama-led government has put Ghana into is ‘dire,’ saying “It
requires serious attention.”
“You cannot solve the problem by personal
insults, distributing cars, bus branding, lies or propaganda. You cannot run
away from the real issues.”
Excessive Borrowing
According to Dr. Bawumia, under the eight
years of the NPP government (from 2001-2008), taxes and loans amounted to GH¢20
billion. In contrast, taxes, oil revenue, and loans alone over the 8-year
period of 2009-2016 would amount to some GH¢248 billion, adding, “The
Mills-Mahama governments would have had in eight years, more than 12 times the
nominal resources that the NPP had.”
In terms of GDP Growth, the ace economist
said without oil, the NPP competently managed the economy to increase growth
from 3.7% in 2000 to 9.1% in 2008, while with oil and unprecedented resources,
economic growth had declined to 3.9% in 2015 under President Mahama and his NDC
government.
“After declining to 4.8% in 2009, real
GDP growth increased to 7.7% in 2010 and 14% in 2011 following the onset of oil
production. Since 2011 however, real GDP growth has declined steadily and
drastically to 3.9% in 2015 - basically the growth rate Ghana attained in the
year 2000.”
He said that between 2000 and 2008, the
size of Ghana’s economy increased from some $5.1 billion to $28.5 billion (a
459% increase in eight years) and this happened during the global economic and
financial crisis in 2007/8 with oil prices reaching a record high of
$147/barrel.
“Ghana’s GDP, notwithstanding the
discovery of oil, has only increased from $28.5 billion in 2008 to a projected
$40 billion in 2016 (a 40% increase in eight years). However, between 2012 and
2016 (i.e. during John Mahama’s tenure as president), the economy, in dollar
terms, shrank by 5%.”
Public Debt
He said that another critical area which
underlined the incompetence of President Mahama’s NDC administration is what he
termed “unprecedented” borrowing saying, “From GH¢9.5 billion in 2008, the NDC
has incredibly increased Ghana’s total debt to GH¢105 billion.”
He said some 66% of Ghana’s debt (GH¢69
billion) has been accumulated under the presidency of John Mahama in just the
last three-and-a-half years.
Interest Payments
Dr. Bawumia revealed that Ghana is currently
spending more to service interest payments than it spends on infrastructural/capital
projects annually.
“The data also
shows that during the NPP period of governance, capital expenditure far
exceeded interest payments. This is because low interest payments allow room
for more capital expenditure. Infrastructure expenditure as a percentage of GDP
declined sharply after 2008 as interest payments increased. From 2014 to date,
interest payments have now incredibly exceeded infrastructure expenditure. How
can an economy be on an upward growth path when interest payments exceed infrastructure
expenditure? This is the result of NDC’s economic mismanagement,” he
said.
Contracts Inflation
The NPP vice presidential candidate said
the Mahama-led government was ripping Ghanaians off by using inflated contracts.
“I saw two virtually identical sets of teachers’
bungalows in Dambai Teacher Training College this year; one constructed under
the NPP in 2007 and the other by the NDC in 2011. These two buildings are
side-by-side. The one constructed by the NPP cost some GH¢195,000 whereas the
one constructed by the NDC cost some GH¢900,000 (4.6 times more). What accounts
for this huge difference?” he wondered.
NPP’s Terms
As a way forward, Dr. Bawumia said when
given the chance, an NPP government under Nana Akufo-Addo “will do things
differently,” promising to among other things, restore macroeconomic stability
without delay.
He said the (NPP) government would enhance
fiscal discipline, financial stability, shift the focus of economic management
from taxation to production, empower local businesses and pursue what he called
Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP).
“The NPP will reorient the national
capital expenditure budget to place a focus on constituency-specific needs,” he
said, and the party in government would invest heavily in Information
Communication Technology (ICT) and education among many other things.
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