The Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic
Party (NPP) has said Ghanaians are desirous of change in government because they
are disappointed with the performance of the National Democratic Congress
(NDC).In an article published in an international news magazine,
Newsweek, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said no one can stop the wind of change
sweeping through the country.
According to him, Ghana is getting lots of
accolades for being a trailblazer among its peers which has “often flattered
only to deceive.”
He stated the Ghana gained lots of grounds economically
because of the measures erstwhile president John Agyekum Kufuor took with
international agencies while praising his deft management of issues.
The
three-time flagbearer spoke of how President John Mahama “managed a disputed
slim electoral victory but the consequences have stayed with us. My party went
to court to contest the election results and, as our presidential candidate, I
accepted the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in favor of the result and we maintained
the peace of our nation.”
Mahama’s government has mortgaged our future.
The NDC government has borrowed heavily against our future to increase spending,
but none of it has strengthened our economy, our well-being, or our regional or
global standing.
Below is the article
In 2017, Ghana will
celebrate 60 years of independence. We were the first sub-Saharan African people
to achieve independence and, at many stages during the past six decades, Ghana
has been praised as a trailblazer for success in Africa. Unfortunately, Ghana
has often flattered only to deceive.
After many years of political
upheaval, we have enjoyed stability under a multi-party constitutional
government since 1992. In 2000, Ghana made history again with its first peaceful
change of government through the ballot box. I served as foreign minister in
that government, led by President John A. Kufuor, between 2001 and 2008. At that
time, Ghana was proof that it was possible for a peaceful transition of power
from one party to another through the ballot box in Africa.
Our
government inherited a desperate economic situation and President Kufuor took
the politically difficult but brave decision to opt for the Highly Indebted Poor
Country (HIPC) Initiative—a status indicating high levels of poverty and making
the country a candidate for special assistance from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. By 2006, we had not only emerged from HIPC
status, but Ghana was making waves on the international scene—our economy
recovered and we had weaned ourselves from IMF and World Bank supervision. We
had proved we could manage our affairs and were economically
independent.
When oil was discovered in commercial quantities offshore in
2007, it was hoped that Ghana was ready to leave the ranks of the perennially
poor countries. In 2007, for the first time ever in our history, an independent
Ghana went to the capital money market and raised money for critically-needed
infrastructure developments.
By 2008, Ghana had enjoyed years of steady
growth and democratic consolidation. President Kufuor had invested in education,
healthcare, infrastructure and services for our people. Ghana was a bastion of
stability in West Africa.
As President Kufuor prepared to retire, the
then opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) rolled out a clever
catchphrase during the 2008 elections: “Where’s the money in your pockets?”
Their campaign, fronted by then vice-presidential candidate John Mahama, was
based on the premise that macroeconomic stability did not matter; infrastructure
development did not matter; the establishment of a National Health Insurance
Scheme did not matter; Ghana halving poverty did not matter; Ghana becoming one
of the first countries to meet the stringent conditions of the United States
Millennium Challenge Account and signing for a $500 million grant for
infrastructure development in 2006 did not matter.
The dramatic financial
crisis in 2008, coupled with the drastic rise in oil prices, hurt economies
across the globe, and the appeal of “We shall put money in your pockets” saw the
NDC’s presidential candidate John Atta Mills win the election by a margin of
less than 1 percent.
I was the presidential candidate of the-then
governing party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and I conceded defeat. Again,
Ghana was the toast of the world and the newly-elected U.S. President Barack
Obama came to our country to cheer us on in 2009. In other words, when the NPP
left office in 2009, Ghana was doing well.
We started producing oil in
2010 and our traditional commodities of cocoa and gold were performing well on
the markets. However, many things stalled and by 2012, as we approached
elections, Ghana was having economic difficulties: real GDP growth dropped from
14 percent in 2011 to 8 percent in 2012, and the fiscal deficit increased from
-4 percent to -11.6 percent in the same period due to unbudgeted election-year
spending.
President Atta-Mills passed away suddenly five months before
the elections in December 2012 and was succeeded by his vice-president, John
Mahama. In order to retain the presidency in the elections, President Mahama
went on a dramatic four-month spending spree that tipped the current account
deficit into the double-digit zone. He managed a disputed slim electoral victory
but the consequences have stayed with us. My party went to court to contest the
election results and, as our presidential candidate, I accepted the 5-4 Supreme
Court ruling in favor of the result and we maintained the peace of our
nation.
The country is peaceful but under President Mahama there are no
economic dividends. Youth unemployment has reached alarming levels—the World
Bank said in May that 48 percent of Ghanaian youths are unemployed—and is the
greatest threat to our country. The government has been on a borrowing binge
that, if not stopped, will impoverish our nation and its people.
Nobody
would question borrowing to invest, but the IMF’s managing director Christine
Lagarde has said that Ghana’s large borrowing was not generally used for
investments, but was instead used to finance large recurrent spending. The
Mahama government has abandoned all transparency in procurement and big national
projects are contracted out without any competitive bidding.
There are
open accusations of corruption in government that have not been properly
addressed. The 2016 Mo Ibrahim Index on African Governance cited Ghana as one of
the two worst deteriorations in governance in the last decade among African
countries.
Ghana’s economic growth rate topped 14 percent in 2011, but
collapsed to under 4 percent in 2014, driven by a sharp contraction in the
industrial and service sectors. The Ghana currency went into freefall,
inflationary pressures rose and today bank base rates average about 33
percent.
The best way to describe the current economic situation in Ghana
is one of wasted opportunities. The IMF predicts that our GDP growth in 2016
will be 3.3 percent, the lowest since 1994. Our GDP growth this year will be the
lowest it has been since 1994.
National borrowing and spending are so out
of control that lenders no longer consider us a good risk. As oil output
increased, Ghana slid back into becoming a highly distressed indebted country.
We are again dependent on payouts from the IMF, and negotiating national
policies and reforms with foreign institutions. Foreign investors have been
discouraged by the unstable economic conditions, and by the electricity crisis
that has left Ghana with shortages and outages.
We go to the polls to
elect members of parliament and the president of the republic on December 7. I
am honored to be the presidential candidate for my party, the NPP. We are
presenting the country with a manifesto of fully costed programmes that we term,
“An Agenda for Jobs.”
We are hoping to win the forthcoming elections and
are determined to do things differently to be able to give our country a solid
and sustainable change for the better. After 60 years, we have run out of
excuses for our poverty and slow rate of development. My party is committed to
the establishment of the office of a public prosecutor to reassure Ghanaians
that decisions about prosecutions are removed from political
considerations.
Mahama’s government has mortgaged our future. The NDC
government has borrowed heavily against our future to increase spending, but
none of it has strengthened our economy, our well-being, or our regional or
global standing. As attention to African markets expands, we find ourselves
competing with other nations we used to outrank. But the good news is that,
after eight years, the people of Ghana are looking for change.
How Ghana
manages its oil wealth will determine how we are viewed by the world. But more
importantly, it will determine what our people think of our nation. On December
7, Ghana has the opportunity to restore hope and set the country on the path of
prosperity. |
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