Bawumia’s comparative economic analysis is not for those who are allergic to reality – Boako

People who are allergic to facts are having trouble understanding Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s comparative analysis of the economy, which he delivered in a public address on Thursday, April 7, according to Dr Bawumia’s spokesperson, Dr Gideon Boako.

Dr. Boako explained that in an era when the opposition is determined to use the current economic situation to score political points, the Vice President, who also serves as the head of the Economic Management team, needed to inform Ghanaians about where the country stood in terms of economic development when they took office in 2017, and where it stands now.

“Have you ever seen the NDC members quiet that they failed horribly so they won’t come to the political scene again?” he stated on Tuesday April 12 on 3FM’s First Take with host Dzifa Bampoh. So, if he’s functioning in a political climate where there’s competition and the opponent wants people to think that you’re doing the worst, tell them what you’re doing but also let them know how you compare to what they did. People will be able to choose whether or not this government is better at that point. You wouldn’t want us to make that comparison unless you’re opposed to facts.

“So what the Vice President did, spoke to the issues and and asked questions that people are asking, and said is he is going to deal with them. In dealing with the questions he produced the data to say that, look, all is not as we may want to see but comparatively, looking at where we are coming from, this is the progress we have made. Every economist will do trend analyses using historical time series data, there is nothing wring with that. Even here, he didn’t mention NDC but of course, he made reference to periods and you can put your own inference to it. It is important for us to lay that fact bear that, yes, we have a situation, even in the midst of the ravages of Covid-19 and the ramifications of the Ukrainian-Russian war, this is the performance we have put up , it may not be the ultimate performance people are looking up to but if you look at history, this is thus far the best we have had. Who says a politician has no right to make such statements especially when he is speaking to the fact.

“When Mr Mahama and the NDC started saying government is failing , whey were they saying that?. they needed to produce data, to let us know if truly what they are saying is true . They said Bawumia should speak, he has spoken, why are they not coming out to have similar lecture.”

During the address, Dr Bawmuai indicated that the economy was doing well until the pandemics and the geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine emerged.

Regarding the debt situation, Dr Bawumia said that in addition to the Covid expenditure, the banking sector clean up exercise and payment of excess power in the energy sector as a result of the contracts signed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, accounted for the rising public debt.

He stated also that the government needed to save the lives of the people hence the decision to prioritise spending in the health sector in order to restore the health of the people.

Speaking at a forum held by TESCON, students wing of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), he said spending in all these areas cost the government ¢50.1billion.

But for the banking sector and the Excess Energy payment, he said the debt would be hovering around 68 per cent instead of the 81 per cent.

“Between 2019 and 2021 Ghana’s debt to GDP increased by 17.6 percentage points of GDP. It should be noted that without the 15.1 billion of the exceptional items – the financial sector and then the energy and Covid Ghana’s debt to GDP would have been about 68 per cent instead of the current 80 per cent,” he said.