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President Akufo-Addo and his Npp must stop appropriating the achievements of the Mahama administration as theirs. It is disappointing the a party which came to power on claims of high moral ground and claimed has the men, rather than focusing on delivering its promises to cure the high expectations among Ghanaians, is dancing around the achievements of the Mahama administration in an attempt to make the public believe that successes recorded under President Mahama are theirs. All the economic outlets have been stagnated as a result of their bogus economic policies and inability to articulate clearcut economic policies.For instance, why should an administration that has not added one megawatt to the power generation capacity of the country state in its budget claim credit for the stable power supply in the country. The display of nervousness of the Akufo-Addo government in the challenge of fulfilling its bogus and unrealistic promises upon which they rode to power, does not in any way rationalise the resort to deceit and flagrant appropriateness of Mahama’s achievements. Government should focus on resolving the economic downturn now manifesting in the abandonment of ongoing infrastructural projects including the rest of the 123 community day secondary schools, crippling of foreign and domestic investment and continued slide of the cedi and capital markets. The president has surrounded himself with his family members and friends whose divergent personal interests have become a huge burden on the health of the economy and sustenance of our democracy. This government has positioned itself to claim credit for the turn around and resuscitation of the power sector without reference to the past administration that added all the new megawatts which we expect will result in steady supply of power for many years to come.
Perhaps the Akufo-Addo administration and the Npp would be sincere enough to publish the details of the handover notes they received.
Many have reserved their comments until, in the fervent hope that once the euphoria that may have inspired the various attacks on the past administration wears off, reason will prevail.
It was the Mahama administration that mobilised and secured funds for the ports expansion project
It was the Mahama administration that secured the 125 million Canadian dollar loan the Akufo-Addo administration used as seed money for the Planting for food project
The Water project the Npp administration credited itself with, was began and completed by the Mahama administration.
The Enhanced Community Information Centres inaugurated by the new communication minister were constructed during the tenure of Dr Omane Boamah as part of Mahama’s ICT revolution
The digital addressing system began under John Mahama. The administration in collaboration with Zoomlion covered over 80% of the country. Government did not pay a pesewa for the project apart from human resource support.
The Mahama administration concluded negotiations with Air France to operate in Ghana before exiting office.
The Mahama administration began massive infrastructural development in all government health facilities without voluntary support as being done by the first lady and the health ministry (KATH)
The Mahama administration introduced strategic economic and financial policies such as GIFMIX, ESLA and established the Ghana’s version of Exim Bank, stabilisation levy, special import levy. The Nation Builders programme was from the YES initiative.
The improvement that we currently seeing in the power sector, social services and other sectors are results of the foundation laid by the Mahama administration.
Unfortunately the new administration’s bogus economic policies and anomalies have started taking a huge toll on the economy and killing some of achievements recorded under the last administration-
The cedi is suffocating.
Our revenue for 2017 dropped.
Government has suspended the free fertilizer distribution programme introduced by the last administration.
The hastily introduced paperless system is killing businesses.
Latest report by the World Bank reveals that Ghana has dropped in terms of good business environment rating and Barclays South Africa’s latest report also revealed that local investment has dropped.
Government failed to raise its targeted amount when it recently issued its energy bond.
Funding the Free SHS programme is becoming a huge challenge for the administration culminating in the call on Ghanaians by government to support the programme through voluntary contributions.
AKUFO-NOMICS-
The finance minister raised the issue of huge wage bill pressure on the economy and attributed the administration’s financial challenges to the huge wage bill and other recurrent expenditure. Meanwhile, his government is going to spend almost a billion Ghc on referendum for the creation of more regions. If the results of the referendum gives the government the authority to create the new regions, government’s administrative cost and other recurrent expenditure will automatically increase, the wage bill will swell. Most countries including the developed nations have started removing wasteful subsidies and squeezing budgets for education to enable them improve infrastructure in the sector. Theresa May has proposed new policies to enable her pursue her technical and vocational education agenda. In Saudi Arabia, subsidies on some goods and services have been removed to ease the pressure on the economy, in the Nordic countries, their governments have started reviewing their free education policy to enable then restructure the education sector. Ghana still have huge deficit to clear in terms of infrastructure in the education sector and events after the introduction of the free SHS have confirmed this obvious truth. Teachers are still being underpaid with government yet to clear decades old arrears, teacher to student or pupil ratio is still low yet, we have hurriedly introduced the free SHS pressure which has brought huge pressure on the economy. Government is now appealing to Ghanaians to help fund the project.
We still depend on imports. Our local industries are not getting the needed protection including protection of a tariff to be encouraged to make themselves, more efficient by joint action. Agriculture is declining and we are importing foodstuffs, our local industries are losing ground to their foreign competitors and investors, are living largely by manufacturing goods.
Almost 70% of our revenue goes into paying salaries and other emoluments of less than 30% of the population. Meanwhile the 2017 report by the finance ministry revealed that there was a huge shortfall in our revenue generation. This means government must quickly institute measures to compensate for the loss in revenue. Instead of introducing prudent modifications to reverse the situation, government is aggravating the situation with the introduction of more populist policies including removal of certain strategic taxes it described as nuisance taxes. Government’s expenditure on education will increase in 2018, arrears owed statutory bodies must be cleared, arrears of constructors, teachers etc must all be cleared to avoid unnecessary clashes and upheavals. Meanwhile, our donor nations are also recovering from their economic challenges as a result of the slight global economic recession between 2012 and 2016. The Finance minister always mentions debt profiling and uses that as justification for the massive borrowing and bond issuance. Unfortunately for the economy, these loans, according to the finance minister, go into debt servicing meaning, we go for loans to settle loans. And we settle our loans to create fiscal space for more loans to be contracted for payment of salaries and other recurrent expenditure.
The president has proclaimed different sweet jargons as the cornerstone of his administration’s transformation agenda. But how can we achieve what he says without the implementation of prudent measures aim at building an independent economy, firmly structured on the resources potential of our land, an economy in which growth and development are not ends in themselves but means towards the satisfaction of social needs of the masses as a whole. Government paid $15 million on digital addressing system and come back to preach sweet and powerful sermons on unemployment. Is that prudent management of the public purse? When thousands are still sleeping in darkness. MTN through its mobile money concept, has offered unemployment to thousands of Ghanaians. We don’t need the policies being rolled out by this administration to solve the unemployment menace. We can no longer rely solely on cocoa, it is time we start looking at other revenue earning sectors and create comfortable space for our local investors to grow their businesses.
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