The life of the ordinary Ghanaian has got significantly worse over the past eight years due to the mismanagement and corruption of the National Democratic Congress government, according to the Danquah Institute, a public policy and research centre.
Using the Misery Index, which is a way of quantitatively showing how the Ghanaian economy has gotten worse under the Mahama-led NDC government, the Institute revealed that the mismanagement of the economy, evidenced in the country’s growing debt, worsening exchange rate and increasing costs of consumer goods and electricity, points to one fact: Ghanaians are bearing the costs of NDC’s incompetence.
The conclusions compiled by the Institute using multi-year data provided by government institutions like the Bank of Ghana, Ghana Statistical Service, and the Energy Commission of Ghana, between 2006 and 2015, point out that governance standards have slipped, with the economy struggling and making life more difficult for every Ghanaian.
“The government has mismanaged the economy and taken on loan after loan, increasing Ghana’s debt burden to an unsustainable level and mortgaging the country’s future. The result is slowed business growth, the loss of jobs, and higher prices of everything from bread to medicine,” the Institute noted in a statement signed by Nana Attobrah Quaicoo, the Executive Director.
The statement also made reference to the 2016 Mo Ibrahim Index report titled, “A Decade of African Governance,” which reveals that Ghana has had the most significant decline in good governance over the past decade, with the country’s overall score on the index declining by 2.1, making it the eight largest deteriorating country on the continent.
“With the exception of Mauritania, which is struggling to contain terrorism, all of the countries that have declined equally or more than Ghana – Libya, Madagascar, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Mali, the Gambia, and Burundi – are classified by the World Bank as Fragile and Conflict-Affected States. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation notes this trend as ‘concerning,’ pointing to the ‘potential fragility’ of Ghana’s previously strong democracy,” it disclosed.
With regard to the country’s debt to GDP ratio, the Institute revealed that the NDC’s mismanagement of the country’s budget, even with the benefit of oil revenues, had meant a steady increase in Ghana’s debt-to-GDP ratio, which has more than doubled from 33.6% in 2008 to 71.4% in 2016.
“The value of the cedi has fallen steadily against the dollar over the past eight years: in January 2008, the cedi was at near-parity with the dollar; now the cedi is worth $0.25, a sign of just how much Ghana’s economy is struggling,” it added.
It continued that the average price of consumer goods, including food, had more than doubled over the past eight years, according to a standard measure known as the Consumer Price Index whilst the inflation rate has ticked up over the past four years under President Mahama, from less than 9% in 2012 to nearly 19% today.
“Government tariffs on electricity have more than doubled since the NDC took office in 2009, dramatically increasing the cost of electricity to households and businesses,” it further stated.
“Ghanaians are paying significantly more for gasoline and electricity than at the end of the Kufuor administration, despite the discovery of oil in the Jubilee Field. The NDC government’s mismanagement, incompetence, and corruption are responsible for the severe shortages in electricity supply that have left Ghanaians without lights in their homes and have made it impossible for businesses to operate,” it stressed.
Lastly, the Institute held that the mismanagement, incompetence and corruption of the Mahama-led NDC cannot be ignored and “the NDC is about to pay the ultimate price for these failures, as the people of Ghana get ready to reject them at the polls."