ECONOMIC MISMANAGEMENT AND HARDSHIPS
On the economic front, Nana Addo and the NPP pledged to transform Ghana within 18 months, grow our economy at double-digit, reduce borrowing, ensure fiscal discipline, bring down the cost of living, lower taxes and protect the public purse. They promised to move Ghana “from taxation to production.”
In effect, none of these has been achieved. Instead, Ghanaians have been subjected to excruciating hardships and deprivation resulting directly from the mismanagement of the economy by a government that lacks the humility to accept responsibility, and the capacity to appropriately diagnose the root causes of the challenges that have brought us here.
Rather, they constantly seek to impose on us, their version of the economic reality-denying that food prices have gone up; insisting that the business climate is favourable; virulently protesting the evidence that their investments in meaningful capital expenditure is insignificant; and ignoring glaring evidence of unprecedented levels of corruption and breaches of internationally acclaimed standards of social justice.
This government contests even the most basic and glaring set of facts. This should never have been the case for a government that has been fortunate to receive far more resources in the last five years than almost all governments before them under the fourth republic, put together.
At the last reckoning, over GH¢ 500 billion had been available to them through taxes, grants, borrowing and other sources of revenue. No government in our recent history has been that fortunate.
Despite this fortune, today, the Ghanaian economy ranks among the worst managed in the world. It is characterized by unsustainable public debt due to an unprecedented fiscal deficit, comparatively high and still rising inflation, a rapidly depreciating currency, spiraling cost of doing business, ever rising cost of living, high levels of corruption, abuse of civil and human liberties, and a general loss of investor confidence. Simply put, our country is on the verge of bankruptcy.
In spite of the firm promise to reduce borrowing, this government has increased our public debt to almost GH¢ 380 billion as of the end of the first quarter of 2022. This is more than three times the debt of all governments since the days of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah up to January 2017.
A direct consequence of this astronomical borrowing is that our debt service obligation per annum has increased by 500% from GH¢10 billion in 2016 to about GH¢50 billion now. We are at great risk of defaulting on our debt repayments unless something drastic is done.
To be clear, despite the heavy politicisation of debt by the current administration while in opposition, the real problem we face is not just because of the daunting large size of the debt value. Rather it is the stark reality that these huge levels of borrowing have not gone into infrastructure and capital investment but have been applied, largely, to consumption, and in some cases even misapplied.
This heavy borrowing has not been met by a commensurate and significant improvement in the size of the economy to ease repayment of the debt in future.
My brothers and sisters, an important and yet very disturbing variable, often ignored in our national discourse about the debt situation, is the corresponding ballooning of government indebtedness to local businesses and other statutory bodies including SOEs.
These issues must occupy an important space within national discourse because our estimation is that government’s liabilities to local businesses and other stakeholders exceed GHC30 billion.
Arising directly from the excessive borrowing to fund consumption related expenditure is the harsh truth that, more than half of what government collects in taxes is used to service debt with the remainder going almost exclusively into public sector wages. This has created self-inflicted rigidities that leave very little space for investment in other important areas of the economy.
The effect of this, is that government is unable to meet its spending obligations in the most critical sectors of the economy on which the livelihoods of millions of our people depend.
It is little wonder therefore that out of a total of annual collection of GH¢ 2.1 billion under NHIL, as at end 2021 only GH¢ 127 million (about 6%) had been released to the Authority.
This is stifling the ability of health care providers in the private and public sectors to provide adequate care for the mass of our people.
My brothers and sisters, in the hands of a more responsible and prudent administration, the resources that have been available to this administration, should have resulted in quantum leaps in the standard of living of Ghanaians and we should have recorded major progress as a nation.
After inheriting a stable economy that was programmed and poised for rapid growth from early 2017, this government has squandered its way into a ditch from which it has become impossible to emerge without imposing even deeper hardships and suffering on Ghanaians.
The minimum expectation was that the NPP government will build on the strong foundation that had been bequeathed them and achieve incremental progress over what they met. They have instead carried out a demolition exercise of that foundation and left our economy in quicksand, sinking at an alarming rate.
However, now we know, that responsibility and prudence are not concepts that appear to be appreciated by this government.
As we speak, the cash crunch arising out of the rigidities in the economy is having a devastating toll on almost all sectors of our national life.
Take the education sector for instance.
At the basic level,
Capitation grants have been in arrears for nearly a year.
Textbooks have not been supplied to basic school pupils for three straight years
At the SHS level,
Lengthy delays in the release of funds have crippled the Free SHS program compelling key stakeholders like CHASS and GNAT to issue ultimatums to government
There have been widespread reports of food shortages and nutrition deficient, poor quality food in schools across the country and,
The academic calendar has become erratic due to non-availability of funds to run the schools
At the tertiary level,
UTAG recently ended a protracted strike action to call on government to honour its commitment on salary rationalization and better conditions of service. The UTAG strike severely undermined teaching and learning on our various campuses
College of Education students have spent more time at home than in school because of the lack of funds and;
Trainee allowances have been in arrears for several months amidst threats by school authorities to shift the cost of feeding unto students in the absence of timely release of funds by government.
The government’s mismanagement of the GETFund has not helped matters in the education sector.
Similar liquidity challenges permeate all sectors of the economy. Elsewhere, the District Assemblies Common Fund still stands in arrears of several quarters – endangering our accumulated mileage in local government administration.
LEAP beneficiaries who depend on a very meagre quarterly stipends for survival have also in recent times been denied access to these payments for many months, condemning them to intense and perilous hardships.
As I said earlier, NHIS service providers are owed several months arrears and are sparingly paid for their service. This is due to the illegal diversion or misapplication of attributable funds.
Related to this is the reckless collateralisation of various funds to satisfy current consumption needs, and worse of all is the government’s express desire to collateralise more of such funds:
They have collateralized ESLA till 2035,
They have collateralized almost GH¢10 billion of GETFUND revenue through the 7-year Daakye bond and
After mortgaging all the family property, they are desirous of selling off the remaining family cutlery by collateralizing our mineral Revenue through the dubious Agyapa Deal.
And it is expected that they are in the process of collateralising the revenues from the recently implemented E-levy.
Countrymen and women, yesterday at the May Day address, the President stated that it is not possible to remove taxes off petroleum products because it will result in an inability to pay public sector wages. What he did not tell workers was that some of those taxes cannot be removed because they have been collateralized and the money has already been spent.
ESLA when it was introduced had a 5-year lifespan to pay down legacy energy sector debts. Today ESLA cannot be removed as a petroleum tax because this government has spent the money upfront and has collateralised ESLA till 2035.
This entirely unwholesome practice of concealing debt through the collateralization of statutory funds for the contraction of loans must be curtailed. Hidden debts have never helped anyone let alone a nation.
Hidden debts will catch up with you as it has the effect of increasing the public debt while creating a false sense of security because those debts ostensibly sit on the books of state-owned enterprises or special purpose vehicles.
For example, whereas the Bank of Ghana in its latest Summary of Economic and Financial Data pegs our public debt at GHS 351.8 billon with a debt to GDP ratio of 80.1% at the end of 2021, the actual debt stood at GH¢362 billion when you factor into the equation, debts sitting in the names of GETFund, ESLA, and Sinohydro.
Thankfully, the strong will of the people, civil society and the NDC legislators applied the brakes to the Agyapa Deal. We must be determined to defeat the Agyapa Deal if they resurrect it – This can only be the actions of an ‘Agya boni’ and not an ‘Agya pa’.
This grim economic situation has inevitably caught the attention of the global investor community and rating agencies leading to a total loss of confidence in our economy.
Due to this loss of confidence – confirmed by our worst ever downgrade from reputable rating agencies, such as Fitch and Moody’s – we have been shut out of the international bond market since October last year and are set to remain shut out for the whole of 2022 unless the economic outlook improves significantly.
The resulting panic reaction – from the grim economic reality, the mixed and conflicting messages and outright untruths from government actors – has led to significant capital flight by businesses and international actors within our domestic bond market. And has complicated confidence in an already precarious banking sector that suffered the misfortune of the politically motivated collapse of some of our locally owned banks and financial institutions.
It is estimated that about US$200 million in capital flight occurred in January 2022 alone and the Central bank lost about US$687.6 million in net international reserves between November and December 2021.
This also accounts for the steep depreciation of the cedi since the beginning of this year. Based on this trend and the absence of a credible and innovative plan to stem its fall, some Financial Institutions and analysts have projected that the cedi would end 2022 at GHS 8 or above to the dollar. And almost GH¢ 10 or above to the pound sterling, with fuel prices likely to exceed the GH¢ 10 mark.
Another devastating consequence of the massive fall of the cedi is that it would cause a significant increase in our public debt even without further borrowing. This also means debt servicing will increase beyond the budgeted amount and worsen the rigidities that exist in the 2022 budget.
Moreover, inflation has risen from 8% in March 2021 to 15.7% in February 2022 and to 19.4% in March 2022 – the highest in 13 years, since 2009. There is a genuine concern that inflation could rise even further when the passthrough effect of fuel price increases among others starts to take hold.
This coupled with taxes are fast eroding the disposable incomes of households and has made life simply unbearable for majority of Ghanaians. Compounding the economic hardships, is the ever-looming danger posed by the youth bulge – the unemployment crisis.
Data from the Ghana Statistical Service indicates that our nation is not only experiencing a rise in inflation, but also an all-time high unemployment rate of 13.4 %.
This means millions of young people are wasting away their most productive years in abject disillusionment as the Akufo-Addo and Bawumia government continues to pay lip service to the tragic unemployment menace.
Unemployment is leading to social deviance with a significant uptick in armed robbery, kidnapping, fraud, scamming and ritual murders.
Millions of Ghanaian youth with higher education, are trapped in the situation of a permanent purgatory with no clear indication that they can obtain gainful employment before they turn 60 years and retire from unemployment. Yet the President continues to fritter away the taxpayer’s precious money on luxurious chartered flight and other wasteful engagements.
The resort to ad hoc measures has failed to address the problem – once again, it bears saying that Ghana is at a crossroads – and this current administration has no credible solution at hand.
We proposed a number of initiatives that are still very much the solutions Ghana should implement to help tackle the problem of unemployment – the one million Edwuma Pa Jobs Creation Plan, and the free TVET combined with the National Apprenticeship Programme as contained in our 2020 manifesto.
I repeat that Government can draw on them for implementation because we can create an average of 250,000 jobs every year for the young people of Ghana as we make Ghana a 24-hour economy – three shifts of 8-hours each a day.
We must and the NDC will always support the private sector in various forms to enable them grow and expand their earnings and job openings. A stimulus package, like what we provided to pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in the past must be rolled out to other processing and manufacturing sectors.
Our vision behind the establishment of the Ghana EXIM Bank and the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund should not be lost.
The list of excuses offered by this government for the economic mess keeps growing by the day. When it has been convenient, COVID-19 has been made the scapegoat and has been blamed for our woes. The Russian-Ukraine war has also featured prominently on the excuses list as have the so-called financial sector clean-up and supposed excess capacity payments in the energy sector.
My brothers and sisters, none of these claims are acceptable.
THE COVID-19 EXCUSE
The facts reveal that while no one can run away from its impact on the global economy, the COVID-19 pandemic paved way for the Government of Ghana to receive an unprecedented windfall that previous governments could only dream off.
Over GHS 30 billion, sufficient to plug the revenue shortfall of GHS 12 billion anticipated for 2020, was made available to this Government from various sources. The funding sources ranged from our development partners to internal buffers like the Stabilization Fund which was set up by an NDC administration, and other generous donors. Namely:
1 billion USD facility from the IMF,
200 million USD from the Stabilization Fund,
430 million USD from the World Bank,
400 million USD out of the 1 billion USD SDR provided to BOG,
Over 100 million from AfDB and bilateral partners,
20 billion Ghana Cedis from the BOG
Being a pandemic, COVID-19 affected almost every country on earth including our West African neighbours with who we share similar economic characteristics.
Yet, these neighboring countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Guinea, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, have emerged from this pandemic comparatively unscathed and with relatively stronger fundamentals as compared to ours.
Ghana has incurred and recorded astronomical double-digit budget deficits and huge public debts than our West African peers.
Long before COVID-19, it was evident that the economy was being mismanaged. I cautioned against the mismanagement. By 2019, our deficit and debt figures had already reached distress levels. This is a fact which was recently corroborated by the World Bank through its country representative in Ghana.
Unprofessionally, the real figures were always grossly understated under the guise of “appendices, memorandum and below the line items” in our budgets. It is this creative accounting and cooking the books deliberately done in a bid to conceal the true extent of our economic problems that has eventually caught up with this government.
Instead of making judicious use of the resources obtained because of COVID to cushion Ghanaians against the disease and spending strategically to stimulate people-centred economic recovery, the Akufo-Addo administration saw this windfall as an avenue for wasteful expenditure and a conduit for unmerited electoral success.
The people of Ghana demand an independent forensic audit into how the COVID-19 monies were spent.
E-LEVY AND WASTE OF PUBLIC FUNDS
Governments since the 4th Republic have all invested in digital infrastructure in order to modernize our economy. In my time as President, we laid the most extensive number of kilometers of fibre optic cable and further provided 4G LTE wireless broadband in order to bring all parts of our country into the new digital revolution.
Through these investments we have created the opportunity for Ghanaians to enjoy the ease of electronics transactions. Indeed, Ghanaians have taken to the ease of electronic transactions very well.
Mobile money payments are used for remittances to parents in the villages, they are used in the markets and supermarkets to pay for groceries purchased, they are used by market women and other traders to pay for replenishing their stocks, and they are used at filling stations to pay for fuel and services.
Internet and electronic banking have made it easier to move money from account to account without the use of cheques or cash transfers. This is a positive development for our economy and represents the fastest means of shrinking the informal economy and bringing us all into the formal one.
Unfortunately, in the face of this self-inflicted economic catastrophe, this government against all sound advice has decided to introduce the E-Levy, a regressive tax that heaps more suffering on Ghanaians.
Recently our President was asked in a BBC interview, why he was choosing to tax the incomes of Ghanaians in their electronic wallets that had already been taxed. The President’s answer was that it is the newest and fastest growing sector of our economy that is not being taxed.
Clearly the President did not understand the question, or he is clueless about the regressive nature of the E-Levy. A worker gets paid in his electronic wallet. His PAYE tax has been deducted already. For every transfer or purchase above GHS100 he makes on his e-wallet, he has to pay an additional 1.5% tax.
It will now be tempting for such a person to draw cash from his e-wallet and make the payment for his groceries, fuel, entertainment, utility bills etc. all with cash.
The collection of the E-Levy began yesterday and as though a slap in the face, it began on May Day. Already there is a litany of complaints about the implementation. There are complaints of transfers of under GHS100 being subject to tax contrary to the law.
Government’s desperation to tax Ghanaians to get the nation out of the hell hole it has dumped us will not succeed because Government’s own budget proposals show that the e-levy will not make any significant contribution in resolving our problems but would exert an adverse toll on the people of Ghana.
We in the NDC do not oppose taxation as a principle. We will not be pretentious and couch fanciful slogans to condemn the principle of taxation like the NPP did in the past. We are, however, implacably opposed to distortionary and burdensome taxes like the e-levy that only force Ghanaians to endure more suffering.
A new National Democratic Congress Government, God willing and with the votes of the sovereign people of Ghana – in 2025 – will repeal the E-Levy Act.
Even as this government remains fixated with taxing their way out of economic mismanagement, the Akufo-Addo government has been wasteful. They have failed to demonstrate prudence in public financial management.
The people of Ghana cannot be called upon to pay more taxes only for the accruing money belonging to the people of Ghana, to be dubiously and wastefully shared among family and friends through various fraudulent procurement practices.
The creature comforts of the President and his officials cannot be more paramount than the need to protect the public purse and make savings that can be invested in more useful ventures. Ventures such as: education, health, and social housing for Ghanaians.
The 2020 Auditor-General’s report makes for grim reading within the context of waste and corruption in the use of public funds. The report revealed that a colossal GH¢12 billion was lost to corruption and other forms of financial malpractices in 2020 alone.
This is twice the amount that the unpopular e-levy is supposed to accrue this year. It has also recently come to light that our State-Owned Enterprises made total losses of about GH¢5.3 billion in 2020.
Another report has revealed that up to GHS 9 billion of losses was incurred by Energy Sector SOEs between 2018 and 2021.
How can the taxpayer ever be called upon to pay more when his money is going down the drain in this manner?
SOME ALTERNATIVES
Ghana is at a crossroads and the need to institute important corrective measures cannot be overstated.
There is no shortage of solutions to our problems. It is the indolence and avid affinity of this government for a cosmetic approach to governance that has brought us here. Thus, we need far-reaching actions from the President and his Economic Management Team to resolve our challenges.
Despite the challenges I remain confident that despite the current gloom, we can turn things around and create a brighter future for ourselves. Ghana’s best days are still ahead.
Those directly responsible for the economic crisis must bear responsibility and it is inconceivable that the Minister of Finance remains at post, having presided over the worst economic meltdown in Ghana’s recent history. The President must, without further delay, relieve the finance minister of his position and appoint someone who is focused on national rather than self-interest and who has the requisite skill, experience, and knowledge of public financial management in his stead. The personal benefit that the current minister and his cronies derives from borrowing on our behalf through the commissions taken by his companies who serve as transaction advisers raises an unacceptable conflict of interest situation which must end immediately.
It goes without saying that the Economic Management Team, has failed and must be reconstituted immediately, with fresh ideas and perspectives. Having supervised the worst public debt buildup, the worst budget deficit, the worst debt to GDP ratio, the worst credit ratings and downgrades, the worst performing currency in the world, the worst crisis of confidence in our economy, the highest fuel prices ever, ever-rising inflation and unprecedented hardships, the current Head of the Economic Management Team (EMT) has clearly fallen from his ivory tower as a self-styled economic messiah to a poster boy for economic mismanagement and his leadership of the EMT is no longer tenable.
He has lost sight of cause and effects relationships in the economic value chain and complains that our dire economic state is due to bad ratings from international agencies, rather than the fact that our dissipating economy resulted in those bad ratings. How does that assure Ghanaians he is focused on the critical things that need addressing?
The EMT has been bedeviled by their own ineptness, over exuberance and excessive focus on linear thinking of a theoretical cause and effect relationship, devoid of the practical influences of complex real-life nuances.
In short, the EMT assumed a laboratory experimental approach, typically found in textbooks, to the extremely complex Ghanaian economy, and analysed the impact of one variable at a time.
I have often said to people, in most cases, when you are analysing the Ghanaian economy and an obvious simple solution comes to mind, THINK, THINK AND THINK again. The consequence of this lack of depth and experience complicated the problems of economic management with excessive, yet costly experimentations that did not yield viable results.
Alternatively, the President may want to consider appointing one of the many highly qualified Ghanaian public finance management experts to lead the EMT.
The President must as a matter of urgency reshuffle his cabinet. More than 5 years of an administration without a major cabinet reshuffle has calcified the management of the Ministries, departments and agencies. These MDAs and SOEs have become fiefdoms in which untouchable Ministers and heads of agencies are now monarchs of all they survey. Yet they lack the energy, passion, and ideas to turn moribund situations within the MDAs around. Fresh ideas are needed. Morale is at a low in these MDAs.
The seriousness of the economic meltdown must compel government to unveil a clear and workable cause of action, emanating from broad based thinking and consultation, rather than its current state of denial and wrong causal attributions. Such broad consultation must lead to a Post-COVID Economic Recovery Plan. A programme that will focus our energies on building an economy whose fruits of growth will benefit all Ghanaians and give everyone a fair chance at success. The participants of this broad-based consultation must reflect the demographic, social and economic status mix of the country.
There must be a clear and measurable reduction in government expenditure. Even though this is not an easy cause of action, it is a necessary one, nonetheless. I will be the first to admit after running the economy on zero percent, 0%, Central bank financing in 2016. However, a crisis such as this requires drastic measures. I am of the view that, an open and transparent discussion of the true situation with the citizenry will help achieve this objective. The President must lead the way in the demonstration of prudence and modesty in the use of public resources.
He must put an end to the ostentation and opulence and show sensitivity and respect for Ghanaians by using the Presidential jet acquired with taxpayers’ money and stop the rental of expensive jets. Only then would he have led by the power of his example, to quote Bill Clinton, to enable Ghanaians make meaning of the sacrifices he is making to get us out of the doldrums. The extravagance must give way to frugal application of public resources. We cannot live beyond our means and expect not to fall into debt and financial ruin.
Related to this, government must drastically cut and trim down its size, rationalise and bring to reasonable levels, the pay packages of CEOs of SOEs, other senior public servants and heads of state organisations. The time has come to look at the practice of providing free utilities and the allowances such as inconvenience allowance, entertainment allowance and other such innovative allowances that are crafted just as income enhancers.
The practice of setting up amorphous and poorly structured public agencies to run one-off, ad hoc policies must also stop and those already created must be merged with more established and time-tested agencies already carrying out similar functions to curtail the needless duplication and waste. There must be a real effort to plug the loopholes that facilitate the unconscionable losses of public funds incurred through financial malpractices as revealed by the Auditor-General and the losses incurred by SOEs. Strict compliance with public financial management rules and laws must be enforced.
Government must limit borrowing significantly. If we all agree we are in an economic abyss, submerged under the suffocating weight of unsustainably high levels of debt and are at risk of default, then the wise thing to do is to limit borrowing. Government must as a matter of urgency issue a moratorium on all non-concessional borrowing to avoid an increase in our public debt. After the issuance of this moratorium, the dithering must stop, and very urgent steps must be taken to confront the debt problem. The stark reality is that in our current situation, it is just not possible to be servicing our debt at the present levels and have any significant resources left to meet critical expenditure obligations.
It is obvious that this government has no plan on how to handle the debt crisis. I note that Government refused to take advantage of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and the Common Platform for Debt Treatments beyond the DSSI, because of the peculiar nature of Ghana’s debt profile where only about 20% is from multilateral and bilateral partners. The bulk of our debt is from the international credit market and other commercial borrowers with default triggers related to bilateral and multilateral reprieves. Government must open a discussion with the multilateral finance partners and our creditors on a debt restructuring programme which will ease our debt burden and create some fiscal space to allow expenditure in critical sectors of the economy that are currently starved of funds.
Rationalizing and enforcing strict compliance of our tax laws in areas such as the extractive sector, including a pragmatic legislation of the tax exemptions regime can help improve resources inflow. For example, a simple insistence that mining companies relay their export revenues into Ghana, as per the relevant laws, rather than keeping such funds offshore, as is the current case, can help exchange rate stability. We must achieve a national consensus on these alternatives and take proactive steps as soon as possible. The longer we tarry, the worse the situation will get.
While implementing these measures, government must adequately signal to the international finance providers a clear effort at meeting future obligations. Government must commit to using some of the windfalls that we earned from the rising crude oil prices to revitalise the sinking fund in anticipation of future debt servicing. We estimate that the hikes in crude oil prices will translate into a GH¢3 billion or about US$550 million windfall for government this year. Part of this money must go into the sinking fund to build buffers for repayment of the 2025 maturing Eurobond.
Government must also take immediate steps to restore credibility to the management of the economy. A contributing factor to the plummeting of investor confidence in our economy is the practice of underreporting and concealment of key economic indices like the budget deficit, public debt, and Net International Reserves. For instance, the Bank of Ghana must stop adding proceeds of the Heritage Fund and other encumbered funds like Eurobond proceeds to our Net International Reserves to create a false sense that we have more buffers than we actually do.
National data and economic indices should be a matter of fact and not subjected to needless debate and contest. We cannot be debating the factual levels of debt, reserves, inflation, kilometres of roads constructed, number of schools and hospitals built, and whether CAPEX investments should include KVIPs, metric tonnages produced of food items. Ministers must not be contesting reports and data furnished to the public from their own outfits and should not be comparing indices generated from rebased figures to figures prior to the rebasing. In effect government data must be transparent and give a true picture at all times of our national situation.
In addition, government must clarify reports which are rife in the investment community that it intends to use the Heritage Fund as collateral to raise a $ 2 billion loan from a consortium of banks. We wish to serve notice that if this turns out to be true, we in then NDC will oppose it vigorously in the same was that we oppose the Agyapa deal. We cannot support the collateralization of every single source of future revenue just to finance today’s consumption. This practice will deny future governments and future generations the opportunity to benefit from revenue streams accruing from the funds which were originally intended to finance critical sectors of the economy. The Heritage Fund was set up purposely for the benefit of future generations who we cannot saddle with debt and no heritage.
To make certain that this practice doesn’t become the order of day, I would propose the enactment of legislation to stop the collateralization of statutory funds because those funds are now being abused and their original purpose are being seriously hindered.
It is obvious that the assumptions underlying the projections in the 2022 budget especially regarding revenue are overambitious and are unlikely to be achieved considering all that has transpired since the presentation of the budget. Government must revert to more realistic targets and avoid creating further doubts in the minds of investors.
Let me add that it is time to change the structure of our economy by allowing Ghanaians to achieve the popular General Acheampong mantra of “capturing the commanding heights of our economy.” We must increase the GNP of our country as a share of our GDP. Otherwise impressive GDP numbers are mostly the share of foreign investors and subject to repatriation at will.
We must leverage our comparative advantage in agriculture by investing in agribusiness to complete the agriculture value chain in respect of marketing and processing of our agricultural products.
These are some of the interventions government must adopt in earnest. This is not the time for political posturing and display of empty pride. We are staring down the cliff of economic collapse and everyday wasted winds down the clock further.
Action needs to be taken now!
A STRONGER SOCIAL FABRIC FOR SUSTAINABLE DEMOCRACY
My brothers and sisters, aside reversing the economic decay, I wish to emphasize the need to re-weave our social fabric which is bursting at the seams now. It threatens national cohesion and our democracy as well.
The despair and disenchantment that the economic and social problems have created within our people cannot and should not be underestimated. There are many in our country today, who question the relevance and usefulness of the democratic path we chartered thirty years ago. They see too little progress or hope to convince them that democracy of the sort we are practicing is worth the effort.
I am an unrepentant believer in democracy, and I hold that it is the only viable path to nation building. Disruptions of the constitutional order cannot be an option and would rather worsen a dire situation, but I am also pragmatic enough to realize that mere rhetoric and exhortations about democracy no longer give our people hope, particularly our young people who are desperately searching for jobs or the young families out there whose mortgage plans have been disrupted because the dollar has arrested the cedi. What threatens them must threaten us and jolt us into solution mode.
Of course, I know they also have a responsibility as citizens towards national development, but I also appreciate from my interactions with them that, they do not expect government to solve all their problems. They are not unreasonable!
Therefore, we as political leaders must demonstrate through our deeds that the struggle to restore democratic rule those three decades ago and the flame of hope that was lit in our people has not been in vain. We must restore confidence in the democratic path. We can, if we carry out extensive reforms in our political and governance system and deliver the goods and services they yearn for. This is the way to go so that even in times of crisis, they still see a silver lining at the edge of the clouds. And can wait out the hard times assured that effective and responsive leadership will work in their best interest.
The political elite in Ghana are taking Ghanaians for granted and are governing and using resources in a manner that suggests personal benefit rather overrides national collective benefit. Under no circumstance must personal benefit override national benefit.
The time has come to adopt bold and radical measures to carry our people along so we can win back their trust and confidence to manage the affairs of the state with dedication and sacrifice.
After thirty years of operation, the young people of Ghana expect us to carry out a comprehensive review of our constitution and governance system. They expect a strengthened fight against corruption and waste. They expect modesty and frugality on the part of our leaders. They expect humility and respect from those who lead us.
In the meantime, this current administration must show commitment to building genuine consensus on the matters that concern Ghanaians the most and rally support around a common national cause. I am ready to support this national goal with patriotic zeal. The President must show leadership and take urgent steps at this crossroads to end the dangerous levels of inequality and polarization we see in the country.
To do this, let him respect the rights of all citizens and refrain from the intimidation of the media through hostility and needless arrests of critical voices. Let him end the politically motivated witch-hunts of leading opposition voices. For emphasis, President Akufo-Addo and his Vice President must demonstrate a commitment to the fight against corruption by prosecuting his officials many of whom have engaged in corrupt acts and disarm and stand down his militants he has drafted into the security agencies.
On the security front, this government must weed out the rogue elements it has drafted into the security agencies because they constitute a major threat to society – including robbing bullion vans at gunpoint.
Let the Attorney-General prosecute the killers of those eight innocent Ghanaians who were killed during the 2020 elections as well as the perpetrators of the Ayawaso West Wuogon violence. Let the President be interested in his Attorney General securing justice for Ahmed Suale, the journalist who was killed in cold blood for simply doing his work. And let justice be done in the case of Major Maxwell Mahama, a fine soldier who was lynched at Denkyira-Obuasi in 2017 whiles on duty tour.
These are the measures that can begin to set the tone for a genuine dialogue on building national cohesion and consensus and bring an end to the dangerous levels of polarization and discontent we see and feel around.
There is not a single example of any country in this world where repression of the opposition and dissenting voices or bad governance kept any party or leader in power forever. Eventually change will come because there is only so much that an oppressed, and over-burdened people can tolerate.
President Akufo-Addo inherited a buoyant democracy with strong institutions that made it possible for him and his party to win the 2016 elections. And that happened without a fly being hurt. Let him take those steps that would ensure that he leaves the country in one piece at the end of his tenure in 2025.
At the moment, this government has lost its way and seems ill-suited to govern.
CONCLUSION
Ghana is at a crossroads. The state of our nation is dire and crisis-ridden but in the last few weeks happenings in the football arena have taught us what can happen if we change course and do the right things. This lesson came in the shape of our gallant Black Stars who secured qualification to the 2022 World Cup by defeating a much fancied and vaunted rival.
Dismissed, vilified, and disparaged after their poor showing at the 2021 AFCON in Cameroon, the management of the team effected badly needed changes, which provided a new sense of purpose and direction, the culmination of which is the qualification to the Qatar World Cup in 2022.
Today, that qualification has provided a glimmer of hope on a very gloomy national horizon.
Congratulations once again Gallant Black Stars! My prayers and support will always be with you.
The Black Stars journey to the Qatar 2022 World Cup Finals provides useful lessons on which we can model responses to the socio-economic disaster of today. If a team written-off by pundits can reinvent itself, work together under the right leadership, and attain international glory; then the answers to our present woes are not far-fetched, they are within us to achieve.
If we work hard at it together – under exemplary and selfless leadership willing to make the right choices and the right calls – we will emerge out of this current crisis better and more united as a nation.
Failure is not an option. We have in our hand, an opportunity to act and do so quickly – at this crossroads – to return hope to our motherland.
God bless you.
I thank you for your kind attention.