Competence, discipline and experience the only remedy for our plight – Yaw Ansah on Ghana’s economic crisis

Ghana, the once shining star of Africa, has been described by the United Nations as a country in shambles.

In the 2015/2016 financial year, Ghana was able to finance its total budget without any support either from the Central Bank or any foreign assistance.

It must be stated that within those period, the country had accrued billions of dollars readily available in the following separate accounts; Heritage Fund, ESLA Fund, Infrastructure Fund and Contingency Fund among others. The purpose for the creation of these funds among others was to save for future generations as their share of benefits of the crude oil being mined in the country while that of the Contingency Fund was for national emergencies; the Infrastructure Fund was to finance physical projects and that of the ESLA Fund, for the expansion of the energy and power sector of the economy. These were specific funds created by the Mills-Mahama led NDC government with huge sums of money allocation in each of the funds.

When President Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia led NPP government took over in January 2017, having realized all these monies sitting in the accounts of the country, appointed unprecedented number of ministers, and lived extravagant lifestyles.

Tolerance and democracy became a difficult choice but never a right, intimidating dissenting views to put fear in the citizens, with the ultimate aim of re-introducing the culture of silence to gag independent minds in the country.

As we speak, the Finance Minister Mr. Ken Ofori-Attah has publicly announced that if the IMF deal does not go through by March this year, our economy will crash down. What a tragedy this is for our country.

I am not a fun of comparison but it has become imperative to compare the performance of former President Mahama to that of President Nana Akufo-Addo, and doing this is like comparing a fish to a dog and asking which one swims better. Which will be a complete mismatch in terms of their performance in all aspect of the economy.

Former President Mahama’s worst corruption ranking on corruption perception index outweighs the best of Akufo-Addo. In areas of education, health, roads, press freedom, digitization, trade and industry, galamsey fight among others, Akufo-Addo led administration falls flat.

Lastly, I would like to state clearly without any equivocation, that Ghanaians were living better under the erstwhile Mahama led administration. The economic indicators such as exchange rate was low, food inflation was insignificant and agric, industry amongst others were fully supported and subsidised by the Mahama government.

So to say the least, it is never too late to go for change, for competence, experience and selfless leadership.

Yaw Ansah Faisal
Secretary,
Tano North NDC
0246657662