Dr Bawuma has Outlined his Vision for the Nation but Failed to Bridge his huge Credibility Gap

The NPP presidential candidate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has outlined his vision for the nation three months after he was elected flagbearer in what appeared to be a lopsided contest to lead the NPP to the 7th December, 2024 general elections.

Many observers believed that his decision to make time to state his vision was an excellent opportunity to purge himself and deal with his credibility deficit hanging on him.

Alhaji Bawumia has been noted for numerous unfulfilled promises, wild fabrications, inconsistencies in his political discourse during his time in opposition and time in power as vice-president of Ghana. Unfortunately, very many of his pronouncements have come back to harm his credibility as an economist.

Bawumia’s Warped logic…..

In 2022 when the dollar/cedi exchange rate was about Ghc3 to $1, Dr Bawumia had this to say, ‘’…. if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you’’. The exchange rate was not that bad but he thought otherwise just because the NPP wanted power.

In 2022, as Akufo-Addo/Bawumia were in power and struggling to manage the economy, Ghana lost access to the international financial markets; the exchange rate was about Ghc17 to $1; and he had this to say to justify his failure to manage the economy. ‘’I stated in 2014 that if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you.

That was true then and it is true now. But it is warped logic to jump from that to a conclusion that, if there is depreciation in your currency then the fundamentals must be weak.’’ He queried his audience, ‘’do you understand logic?’’ ‘’it is a very warped logic. If the exchange rate moves, you cannot jump to that conclusion.’’
This strange attempt by Dr Bawumia to mollify his audience with a twisted narrative further dented his image as an economist. Can we trust Dr Bawumia to lead Ghana? Certainly NOT.

The NPP presidential candidate once earned the accolade ‘Economic messiah’ for his proficiency in economic management tutorials, but when he had the chance to lead the Economic Management Team (EMT), to put his theories into practice, he fumbled; the economy went bankrupt. He then found refuge in digitalization where he now claims to be the champion of digitalization in Ghana. But the truth is, the NDC under President John Mahama did massive investments in Digitalizing Ghana through Digital (ICT) Infrastructure and its applications culminating in the inauguration of the Accra Digital Center in 2016 at a cost of $8.3million to foster innovation and entrepreneurship through the provision of platforms for business incubation, business acceleration as well as digital research and development programs. The project which started in 2011 was financed by the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The NDC established www.epay.go.gh to offer digital payment services (credit/debit card, mobile money, cheques) etc. on the eservices platform. As it is their custom, the NPP came into office in 2017 and changed the name from eservices.gov.gh to Ghana.gov.gh and immediately claimed ownership. But the truth stands, Mr. John Mahama is the originator of the digitalization process in Ghana.

Dr Bawumia in dilemma …….

While preparing himself to deliver his vision lecture, Dr Bawumia might have been in a dilemma as to how he should present himself to the Ghanaian electorate, and with what message, in the face of reckless borrowing, bankrupt economy, fragmented NPP and his huge credibility deficit.

First of all, Dr Bawumia is the vice-President and chairman of the Economic Management Team (EMT). Secondly, he was handpicked by President Akufo-Addo to be his vice-president because of his high credentials in economic management. So, should Dr Bawumia come out boldly to claim ownership of the state of the economy as his personal achievement and promise to fix it or shy away from it, deny his mentor and chart a new course? Dr Bawumia decided to choose the latter and set out to outline his vision in a 73-page document titled, ‘’GHANA’S NEXT CHAPTER: SELFLESS LEADERSHIP AND BOLD SOLUTIONS FOR THE FUTURE’’.

Ghana needs a leader who is always prepared to accept challenges and fix them. Not the one who will give excuses and run away from obligations. Does the title of the document mean President Akufo-Addo’s chapter within which he is still a vice-president, has a selfish leadership style with mediocre decisions?

At a meeting with students of the Association International School, at the Jubilee House, late last year, the president noted that, ‘’I chose Dr Bawumia to be my vice-president because of his honesty. He is a very clever man and I need his brains to help me govern the country effectively. He is an honest person, and he speaks his honesty. He is not one of those people you have to guess what they try to say. He says what he has to say very quickly, which I like. I prefer to deal with people who are also very direct’’.

President Akufo-Addo, this is your Bawumia. He is very ‘’honest’’, ‘’direct’’ and ‘’clever’’ he has spoken his mind, so what do you say now?

President Akufo-Addo had absolute trust in Vice-president Bawumia, but today, on the face of it, he has turned away and betrayed him like Peter denied Jesus to save himself from lynching by the Roman soldiers preparing Jesus for crucifixion. By doing this, Alhaji Bawumia has created his own fiefdom within the NPP fraternity. At this stage he appears to be operating like an independent presidential candidate, a lone ranger within the dismembered fraternity.

However, President Akufo-Addo appeared to have an inkling of Dr Bawumia’s intentions and warned him against his desire to be a lone ranger at the Jubilee House even before the NPP presidential primaries in December 2023. But the ‘’clever’’ and ‘’honest’’ Bawumia decided not to budge, regardless of the consequences.

Alhaji Bawumia re-branding himself……

What happened at the UPSA Dr Ohene Konadu auditorium on February 2024 was a political promotional campaign to re-brand Alhaji Bawumia for public acceptance to open the way for him to chart a new course for himself and his dismembered NPP.

Conspicuously absent from this historical event were the ‘’Akyem mafia’’ supposed to be the backbone of Dr Bawumia. In absentia were President Nana Akufo-Addo, Ken Ofori-Atta, Nana Asante-Bediatuo and Gabriel Otchere-Darko probably with permission to downplay the event to watch the two AFCON semifinals between Nigeria and South Africa and Ivory Coast versus Congo DR. But former president, Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor together with Madam Rebecca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo, first lady and Prof Angela Lamensdorf Ofori-Atta, wife of the former Finance minister filled the yawning gap. Madam Samira Bawumia, wife of the presidential candidate was also present. But this set-up appeared like a cat and mouse game-plan, well-rehearsed to achieve a particular objective to mislead the public and spike the Butterfly Movement.

Frivolous claims….

Alhaji Bawumia’s claim of inheriting a shattered economy in 2017 has been proven inaccurate. He stated in paragraph 5 inter alia ‘’ladies and Gentlemen, when we assumed office in 2017, we were confronted with an economy with declining growth with several problems and challenges’’.

It is on record that President John Mahama’s administration handed over a robust economy with the following strong foundations to achieve 8% growth in the following year 2017 and beyond if the economy would be managed prudently like John Mahama was doing.

In 2016, the GDP was 57% but today the GDP is more than 100%. The optimum level recommended by the IMF for middle income countries is 60%.

In 2016, the budget deficit was 6.6% but it jumped to 15% before dropping to 7.7% under IMF pressure.

In 2016, the inflation rate was 15.5% but it shot up to 54% in 2022 before dropping to 15% via IMF measures.

In 2016, cocoa production was in the region of 960,000 metric tons and this brought a syndication loan of $1.8Billion at a rate of 2% interest. But today cocoa production has dwindled to below 500,000 metric tons and worse still the syndication loan obtained was $800million at 8% interest rate.

President John Mahama worked with only the Jubilee Oil Field and efficiently managed the economy. In the latter part of 2016, two new oil fields, Sankofa together with Tweneboa, Enyera and Ntomme (TEN) came on stream. The total revenue tripled for the President Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration. Unfortunately, this huge additional revenue was largely mismanaged leading to the junk state of the economy now.

By 2016, the power crisis ‘dumsor’ situation which was inherited by the Mahama administration had been resolved through power generation plants like Karpower, Cent power, Sunon Asogli, and Tico brought in by Mahama.
John Mahama established the energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) to take care of energy debts. Today, the funds have been depleted and independent power producers are always trying to shut down their plants for ‘dumsor’ to return because of the failure of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government to pay huge arrears to the independent power producers.

Mahama left $280million in the Sinking Fund. The objective of this fund is to manage orderly repayment of Eurobonds. This fund enabled the current administration to pay for the President Agyekum Kufuor era Eurobond. Since then, nothing has been paid into the fund.

Mahama set up the Stabilization Fund which accumulated a lot of funds. In the heat of the Covid-19 pandemic when the nation was short of funds, the government withdrew $300million to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the economy.

The nation-builder John Mahama, also set up the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) in 2014 and deposited $270million in the fund. Incidentally, this is the fund being used to finance the construction of the Agenda111 hospital projects which they are still struggling to complete.

In 2016, for the first time in the history of Ghana, the Mahama government run a budget without going to the Bank of Ghana for support. Meaning, there was zero borrowing or financing from the central bank. However, in 2021, under Akufo-Addo/Bawumia, the BOG printed Ghc42Billion to support the government.

In 2022, the BOG once again printed Ghc35Billion at the request of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government for budget support. These illegal transactions made the BOG run into an unprecedented loss of Ghc60Billion.

On the contrary, during the Mahama administration, the Bank of Ghana recorded a profit of over Ghc1Billion.
In reality, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration has no reason to claim that they inherited a broken economy. Dr Bawumia must always speak the truth to help him recover some credibility. As of now, it is difficult to know how much is left in the special purpose funds set up by visionary President Mahama. It is reckless borrowing, mismanagement and massive corruption which have combined to ruin the economy.

Job creation ….

Alhaji Bawumia stated inter alia at paragraph 23; ‘’What is probably the most remarkable development in terms of the economy is that our government has created 2.1 million jobs between 2017 and 2022 notwithstanding the global economic crisis. The public sector recruited 1.2 million people while the private sector created 975,000 jobs (per SSNIT data). Our government has quite clearly created more jobs in a seven-year period than any other government’’.

Observers believe that the so-called job creation could have been mainly political appointments with the epicenter being the Jubilee House where the office of the president was allegedly saturated with over one thousand (1,000) family, friends and concubines as presidential staffers.
In contrast, Mr. John Mahama was able to do with a few hundreds as presidential staffers.

Acute Arithmetical Deficiency Syndrome…..

Dr Bawumia must note that the period between 2017 and 2022 is not seven years as he claimed. There appears to be an Acute Arithmetical Deficiency Syndrome (AADS) in abundance in the whole 73-page document. This claim by the NPP presidential candidate that 2.1 million jobs were created is inaccurate and further reduces the credibility of Dr Bawumia to lead the nation as president. He has been exposed once again, falsifying figures?

According to a report in the Ghanaian Times newspaper of 7th October, 2022, the Director General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang was quoted as saying that, ‘’ SSNIT has over 1.7 million active members with very small percentage from the informal sector’’.

This settles it but some little free education will also be helpful to finally lay the matter to rest.

First of all, the social security scheme was not set up in 2017. The scheme was set up in 1965 to register employers and workers; manage their data; collect monthly contributions from them; manage the funds in prudent investments, and pay retirement benefits to members when necessary, in accordance with the laws which established the scheme. The scheme has undergone several changes since then to a three-tier scheme now. Many workers have joined the scheme and retired since that time until now.

Secondly, the over 1.7 million active members is the totality of both old and new contributors to the scheme over the years, but not within Dr Bawumia’s limited time frame of between 2017 and 2022.

Thirdly, the SSNIT is not a job crating institution. Alhaji Bawumia’s reference to ‘SSNIT data’ as his source is baffling. The right source to go is the Employment ministry. The ministry must be ready to provide the data without hesitation.

Social security and national economies….

Employment is not generated in a vacuum. In the world of social security, the economic success of any country is intrinsically linked to the fortunes of the social security scheme operating in that country. In a booming economy, social security schemes benefit immensely from it. But social security schemes suffer when the economy is in severer crisis as we have in Ghana today.

Unemployment rate goes higher than in normal times. As the chairman of the EMT, Dr Bawumia must also be interested in how much his government is owing the SSNIT in terms of workers contribution in arrears if he is interested in using ‘SSNIT data’ to support his cause.

Within the period 2017 to 2022, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta’s tasteless financial sector clean-up resulted in the collapse of eleven (11) banks; three-hundred and forty-seven (347) Micro Finance Institutions; fifteen (15) Savings and Loans Companies; eight (8) Finance Houses; and fifty-three (53) Fund Managing Companies. In all 434 financial institutions were closed down for being in financial distress to the tune of Ghc9billion which Ken Ofori-Atta eventually settled with over Ghc25Billion. The number of institutions affected is much higher than what any other Ghana government had done. The other bitter aspect which is hardly mentioned in any public discourse by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration is the creation of massive unemployment situation and hardship to thousands of families. The SSNIT itself may have lost over 10,000 active high-income contributors from the shattered institutions to the social security fund. This is unprecedented but Dr Bawumia appears not interested but wants to lead the nation. Using a non-existent ‘SSNIT data’ as a cover-up is appalling and a mark of insincerity.

Conclusion…… Alhaji Bawumia set out to rebrand himself for the top-most job of the nation. He had the chance to offer apologies to redeem his sunken image, but wasted it. He also had the freedom to, for once, present credible data to support his vision and boost his image but ended up widening his credibility gap, deepening his inconsistencies and fabrications as well as demonstrating Acute Arithmetical Deficiency Syndrome (AADS) with false claims and incorrect data.

At this point in the history of the nation, Ghana needs a visionary leader; a team player; a nation-builder with a 24hr Economy in view; a person with visible and verifiable track record; high integrity and trustworthy to build the Ghana we want.

And His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahamah is the man.

By George Yankah