Akufo-Addo says Mahama is desperate and will mismanage the economy - Issues or Personalities?

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says John Dramani Mahama, his main opponent, “is desperate to return to power [and] continue the agenda of mismanaging the economy to the suffering and despair of businesses, households and families”.

The president added that John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) by that will be jeopardising the future of the children of Ghana who are enjoying free education from nursery through to the secondary school level.

Akufo-Addo, in a series of posts on his Facebook Timeline propagating the achievements of his administration as the country heads to the polls on December 7 indicated that, “we cannot afford to let that happen”.

“We cannot, therefore, be complacent. We have to work hard for victory, regardless of the fact that one good term deserves another,” the post read on.

Ghanaians on election day will be choosing mainly between former President John Dramani Mahama and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The incumbent NPP launched their manifesto dubbed “Leadership of service: protecting our progress, transforming Ghana for all” at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, while the NDC launched their manifesto dubbed “Jobs, prosperity and more; the people’s manifesto” at the University for Professional Studies, Accra.

The NPP’s manifesto, the President in his post noted, is based on a belief in “the programmes that we have drawn up in our Manifesto, because they will continue the nation on the path of social and economic transformation, on which we have embarked. Indeed, they will lead to the transformation of Ghana to the benefit of all Ghanaians.”

Since the two manifestos were launched, both parties have tried to focus on issues to some success, though largely they have chosen to focus on personalities.

Whilst Gabby Otchere-Darko, and Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, key NPP advisers have said that the elections are about the two personalities, Samira Bawumia, the Vice President's wife, said in Kumasi over the weekend to NPP women's organisers that the elections are "not about personalities", and urged a focus on achievements as a strategy to bring out voters.

The President's social media messages did not show how the NPP has done better, and frankly borders on the personality game, to wit, John Dramani Mahama "is desperate".

Meanwhile trending on social media, John Dramani Mahama has been saying that the government’s own record says that from 2012 to 2016, he, Mahama, grew the economy by 13 billion cedis, whilst from 2017 to the end of 2020, the economy it is projected by this same incumbent NPP that the economy will have grown under them by "11 billion cedis".

We await credible responses from both candidates based on issues.

Meanwhile, we agree with Samira Bawumia that the elections are not about personalities, otherwise none of the two leaders will qualify, for they have both mismanaged the economy.

Mahama and the NDC took over the Ghanaian economy which had recently come out of the IMF's from Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) with external debts/total debts at about four billion dollars, and raised them astronomically justified by Seth Terkper, the then finance minister's concept of "smart borrowing".

And now, look at the ballooning debts being heaped upon us, easily about four billion dollars a year.

"Did we go or did we come?"

Ken Ofori-Atta, the finance minister even praised God on Kwaku Sakyi-Addo's Sunday Night that he was able to raise three billion dollars in foreign bonds and soon thereafter "the markets closed" due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

This is Ghana, where Ghanaians were asked by President Kufuor to "bite the bullets" and "work hard" so that four billion dollars could be forgiven under HIPC.

What have the NPP and the NDC, led by invariably these same poliTRIKcians led us into, counting from 2007, only 13 years ago when we all came out of the choking national debt situation?

The author is a journalist, communications and media analyst and a writer. The views expressed are solely his and do not represent the organisation he works for.

Email: paanyan7@gmail.com

Blog: ekowrites.blogspot.com

Twitter: @3ArthurAidoo

Sammy Gyamfi ‘runs away’ from why NDC was voted out in 2016

Sammy Gyamfi, the NDC National Communications Officer, is running away from debate with less than 80 days to the December 7 elections.

On Good Evening Ghana on Thursday Paul Adom-Otchere pressed him on various issues but the NDC microphone happy spokesperson declined answers.

Political parties, despite the Coronavirus pandemic are combing the length and breadth of the country propagating their intentions to Ghanaians.

The two main political parties, that is, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been able to launch their manifestos to sell their intentions to Ghanaians through virtual rallies at the University of Cape Coast and University of Professional Studies, Accra respectively.

In a bid to highlight the policies of the NDC manifesto to the general public and for the people of Ghana to appreciate what the main opposition party has for Ghanaians if and when they are given the mandate to come back and correct their mistakes, the NDC National Communications Officer decided (or is it failed?), not to answer the question of why the NDC lost the 2016 general elections to the governing NPP.

Sammy Gyamfi was on Paul Adom-Otchere’s Good Evening Ghana speaking about the NDC’s promise of creating one million jobs from 2020 to 2024 when they win the December elections.

The host asked Gyamfi: “When I look at your record, do you sometimes ask why you were voted out?”

In response, Sammy Gyamfi said: “That is not the issue here; let’s talk about Edwumapa. Ghanaians know why we were voted out, I mean we can have a discussion on any day you choose. Today is a day for our manifesto so let’s restrict the discussion to that.”

This is clearly a legitimate question, a question that was on point, is current and relevant. But Sammy Gyamfi, a lawyer who addresses the media on a daily basis asking questions, dodged the issue without blinking. No respect for the electorate whatsoever when the heat was turned on him.

Before the 2016 elections, the opposition NPP emphasized Ghana's high unemployment levels and underperforming GDP growth rates to appeal to the electorate.

Mahama defended his record, hinging his campaign on plans to boost economic growth and continue modest gains in infrastructure development.

A change in government, Mahama explained, would reverse the progress made.
When the NDC lost the elections, however, their national leadership commissioned the Kwesi Botchway committee report which listed a litany of failures as elucidated by the party folk themselves.

Ghanaians need answers from Sammy Gyamfi.

He should not be allowed to prevaricate. Sammy, you cannot run away from this.

We do not need you in your own court setting your own agenda. We would have asked you to please answer the question, but now it is too late.

You cannot go and think of the answer and come back to rattle prattle later.

This is simply not the attitude to politics we want from our leaders. Below par.

The author is a journalist, communications and media analyst and a writer. The views expressed are solely his and do not represent the organisation he works for.

Email: paanyan7@gmail.com

Blog: ekowrites.blogspot.com

Twitter: @3ArthurAidoo

Kufuor confirms he became President so that he could 'see the whole world' while using state resources

The criticisms of former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s love for foreign travel will never go away: they are part of the low points of his presidency.

Kufuor who indicated in a radio interview stated that, his 82 years’ experience in life has only taught him to be very thankful to God, for, he has been privileged to visit “all the five continents” on Earth and “ending my chosen career at the top as the President of Ghana”.

“I look back and I am so thankful that it’s a fulfilled life. If you’re looking at the chosen career or if you’re looking at family, like meeting my wife for 58 years with five children and 13 grandchildren solid […], so I sit back and say God you’ve favoured me so much, I’m thankful…,” Kufuor said with a broad smile.

He added that when he looks at how the people of Ghana from the North to South, East to West, have been treating him with respect and dignity, he can only be thankful.

“I’m very grateful; I’m happy,” he stressed.

John Agyekum Kufuor won the 2000 presidential election as the NPP candidate. In the first round, held on December 7, Kufuor led with 48.4%, while John Atta-Mills, then a Vice-President, came in second at 44.8%, thus forcing a run-off election.

In the second round, held on December 28, Kufuor was victorious, polling 56.9% of the valid votes cast.

When Kufuor was sworn in on January 7, 2001, it marked the first time in Ghana's history that an elected president had peacefully transferred power to the opposition.

Kufuor was re-elected on December 7, 2004, with 52.45% with his party also increasing its parliamentary majority.

As a President-elect of the Republic of Ghana, Kufuor told reporters in early 2001 that one of his visions was “to see the whole world”.

It is therefore not a surprise nor a secret that he stated that seeing five continents was a blessing to him.

During his tenure, his critics accused him of travelling too frequently and asked that he accounts for the tangible benefits from his foreign trips, a charge his appointees struggled to respond to.

For a politician of his stature, it is a shock that Kufuor could not finance his own trips to the five continents on Earth.

When Kufuor was president he traveled to Australia for a Commonwealth Heads of State and Heads of Government meeting in 2002, leaving then-Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama to preside over the celebrations at the Independence Square, in Accra.

Kufuor thus becomes the only Ghanaian President/Head of State in living memory to reduce the bar so low.

He was later seen on TV with Ghanaians in Australia waving miniature flags to mark the independence day.

Successive presidents have tried to travel less than Kufuor as a mark of modesty and good governance - indeed as an achievement.

There was raging debate during the Atta-Mills presidency when the NPP also started counting how many times Atta-Mills was travelling as compared to Kufuor.

Importantly Kufuor bought and traded in presidential jets while the people hungered and carried yellow jerry cans looking for water - a phenomenon which became known as Kufuor gallons.

It was during his eight-year tenure that already struggling Ghana Airways, which at its peak had had at least 30 planes, finally collapsed.

Kufuor created Ghana International Airlines but that airline could not survive.

During his presidency and still, his birthday is marked with declaration of election results which often become a mixed blessing for him.

Indeed Kufuor has a lot to be grateful for, including a forgiving Ghanaian electorate whose resources are dissipated wantonly on the personal wishes of presidents.

Today, President Akufo-Addo has told Ghanaians that building a national cathedral was a personal “promise” he made “to God”.

Let us be careful of the personal wishes of our presidents, and presidential and parliamentary nominees - they might just come true, while our resources are dissipated.

The author is a journalist, communications and media analyst and a writer. The views expressed are solely his and do not represent the organisation he works for.

Email: paanyan7@gmail.com

Blog: ekowrites.blogspot.com

Twitter: @3ArthurAidoo

Kufuor’s 'losing 2008 elections was a mystery' comment explains the incumbent NPP's date with destiny in December

 

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor (JAK) has said that he never thought that his incumbent NPP could lose the 2008 general elections until the last stages.

JAK said: "Things happened in ways that I could not comprehend", that especially when Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, the then finance minister died, it hit him hard.

He forgot to mention among the "mystery" events that Peter Ala Adjetey, a party chairman and Speaker of Parliament also died.

JAK's list included the death of Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, his finance minister; the global food crises and global financial crisis of 2008; the then unprecedented crude oil price of USD147 at a time when Ghana was not an oil producer; too much democracy within the then incumbent NPP; the decision by some NPP folk to contest "some constituency results" that is, Volta Region votes even though he did not want to mention it by name; and his party's decision to boycott the Tain bye-election as some of the pointers to an impending defeat.

But of all the pointers, the outstanding Tain election, that was boycotted by the incumbent, but which was needed to decide the winner of the run off election, and the decision by some NPP lawyers led by Samuel Ata Akyea to head to court and stop that outstanding ballot which an Accra court rejected by allowing some NDC lawyers to join the "ex parte" motion via "amicus curia" were the worst for Kufuor.

JAK called the verdict of the people "crazy democracy" by giving a specific reason, to wit, "Tain" to Kwaku Sakyi-Addo who interviewed him on Sunday Night on Asaase Radio on Sunday 6 September.

Which animal is Tain?

Tain's "capital Nkawkaw" saw a "tarred road", that is bituminous surface for the first time since creation under JAK, his own words not mine. The NPP administration was building the Bui dam, according to JAK, "if you know the location of Bui" he reminded Kwaku Sakyi-Addo.

The people who were settled from the dam's affected area were given free housing and free electricity. Today the whole of Ghana is Tain thanks to free water and electricity on account of the Coronavirus stimulus package.

What was JAK alluding to by these "Tain" and "crazy democracy" mentions? Infrastructure projects do not necessarily win elections - simpliciter.

The NPP should admit that they have lost the infrastructure debate, and then focus on their strengths instead, period. After all, according to JAK's "crazy democracy" concept, human beings will always go for their "enlightened self interest", a term JAK used when he was president to explain his foreign policy.

In marketing this is alluded to as "what's in it for me?".

Anyone ever seen the Ashanti Region "serial callers" burning their mobile devices including tablets? Anyone heard the reasons they gave? They calculated the cost of buying credit at 10 cedis a day from the four years of Mahama's presidency to date, and added that if they got the promised jobs, things would have been different for them. They also mentioned that their regional leadership is impervious to advice.

But hey NPP might still win: JAK even mentioned "rigging" as part of the reasons NPP lost in 2008, as in NDC may have rigged better than the then incumbent NPP.

JAK again:

“The first round our candidate led with about 49% […]. Then there was a second round which again we believe if democracy was common sense, we should have taken but it didn’t happen. Then, there was a third round when we sent people ahead to talk to the chiefs and people of the area [Tain], so how our own party people said they were taking the Electoral Commission to court to retrain it from having the elections but the court didn’t rule for us but meanwhile the outstanding elections was taking place; we had boycotted it and so that’s how power slipped from our hands. It wasn’t a rejection from the people as such, but so many things came together in a very strange way to deprive us from power”.

Kufuor also explained that the party lost the parliamentary elections because some candidates that lost the parliamentary primary decided to run on an independent basis.

Today about 30 NPP MPs have lost their respective primary elections, and...well...

Back to Tain. For the first time ever Tain became a district, explained JAK, yet the people ignored that gift.

Now if we do not run "a crazy democracy" why will anybody ever think of creating six new regions if not for votes, when the real issues within those regions are heavier than the nomenclature that has been placed upon them. "What's in a name?" is Shakespeare's poignant reminder.

The average 99 per cent at a referenda in those regions does not mean similar margins of victory for NPP come December, for, it did, this election would have been a no contest.

Just a few days ago, the Minister for Roads announced some massive road projects to be undertaken within "three months" in the new regions including Oti. Will that be enough where free SHS has failed to count?

As Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has said: "Every election is a referendum on the incumbent's performance".

And here I add as a matter of JAK's "common sense" quip, that there shall be a referendum on corruption in December, if we care to read between the lines.

On corruption, JAK explained that he reshuffled even the best ministers often, and in some cases asked appointees to submit their resignation.

However, unlike JAK's "over democratic" NPP which prevented him from leading the party even as president, President Akufo-Addo has absolute control but has hardly done a reshuffle in the face of clear failure.

Hear JAK himself: “I attended the meeting [at the NPP headquarters] and the national executive were complaining that there is no money, so I said please let the president assume leadership of the party, they said no. You are the president of Ghana so you remain there and let the chairman of the party be the leader. So, I said look if the president goes out and pleads with the business community they are likely to support but I don’t know if the chairman can do that and they still said no,” Kufuor narrated.

Frankly, who in NPP today can say no to Nana Akufo-Addo, their presidential candidate and current President.

As the management concept goes: "Internal regulation is better than external regulation". This means where the internal party people do not have a voice, the electorate will speak in December.

Sadly however, in this "crazy democracy", a victory for NPP will be interpreted to mean 130 something ministers do not matter, corruption does not matter.

So goes the merry-go-round; the "mystery" of losing,or of winning, as JAK said, does not follow "Mathematics"; it does not follow "average common sense".

It's just a "crazy democracy" we practice here in Ghana.

The author is a journalist, communications and media analyst and a writer. The views expressed are solely his and do not represent the organisation he works for.

Email: paanyan7@gmail.com

Blog: ekowrites.blogspot.com

Twitter: @3ArthurAidoo

Speaking truth to power: I stand with Prof Kwaku Asare and CSOs against Elizabeth Ohene

 

Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare (aka Kweku Azar) says he could not agree with veteran journalist and writer Elizabeth Ohene on her latest stance against Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).

Kwaku Azar, a fellow in Public Law and Justice for CDD-Ghana, explained that during Ohene’s days as Editor of the Daily Graphic, she was labelled by some members of the general public as an “all-knowing editor”, but he, Kwaku Asare, then a student, together with other students, supported her.

The people, he argued, “were wrong then to question and attack her knowledge, motive and even morals merely because she dared demand accountability and transparency from [the] government.

“My auntie [in reference to Ohene] was right then to speak truth to power and is terribly wrong now to attack those who are speaking truth to power!!”

Prof Asare, posted Wednesday on his Facebook Timeline: “People in power in Ghana like to intimidate. And, with their teeming “fans,” they succeed in intimidating many. As such, many are afraid of saying something to [the] government because it will unleash its attack dogs on them”.

He added: “Many are afraid of questioning judges because they will hold it against them when they appear before them. Many are afraid of questioning teachers because they will fail us, etc. They have succeeded in silencing most of us!”. 

Kwaku Azar wrote that the NGOs and CSOs are right to ask questions about PDS, Agyapa, and the other corrupt dealings of politicians for which “empirical” evidence exists. 

On the birth certificate and voter ID card issues Ohene raised, Prof. Stephen Kwaku Asare stressed: “The notion that unanimous Court decisions should end debate is alien to those who love the law. Re Akoto, Ayine, France etc. were all unanimous. Few agree with them!” 

Elizabeth Ohene in her latest article dubbed “All-knowing neutrals” questioned the inability of the NGOs and CSOs in Ghana to take criticism.

She stated that the CSOs were “currently very busy doing what they do best, which is to point out what the government is doing wrong”.

Then she charged: “Since that is their self-appointed role, I wouldn’t feel the need to comment but for the persistent fact that the CSOs appear to think that any criticism directed at them means one is against them.”

To say that journalists, writers and critics generally are self-appointed is very debasing, an affront to the media profession of which Ohene is part, and simply condescending to say the least.

How so when Ohene was President Kufuor’s Minister for Media Relations? Ohene returned from the BBC to tell us that Rawlings’ 19 years in office made the media impotent. 

In one speech I remember vividly at the University of Cape Coast as Minister for Tertiary Education, she called on the media to specialise, to train themselves in feature and editorial writing, to sharpen their skills beyond mere reporters so that the general public will respect the profession.

And I am doing just that.

She further wrote: “These groups…...claim to be honest, hardworking and effective and they have answers to every problem. They are mistaken.”

Elizabeth Ohene continued: “They say they are not party political, and they are openly disdainful towards those in politics, especially those in government. It is sometimes difficult to discern that they believe anyone apart from them serves Ghana or has good intentions towards Ghana.

“They seem to operate on the general principle that governments are corrupt and ineffective and NGOs and CSOs are clean and effective. For what it is worth, I disagree.”

Well, I also disagree with Elizabethe Ohene, because “for whatever it is worth” to borrow her expression, I am a journalist just like her, but I am “a political junkie”, unlike she, who has been more privileged to walk the corridors of power. 

I have written against the poor management of the coronavirus pandemic, for example. Strangely enough Ohene suggests that the CSOs are ashamed and “quiet” now because the infections seem to have gone down and that people are not dying by the “truckloads” as the CSOs suggested. How could Ohene be so ignorant and dishonest at the same time, when it is trite knowledge that over 3000 samples were left in a Takoradi lab for weeks, and then discarded?   

In times like these, when speaking truth to power is judged as “know it all”, we better buckle up, for, more dumbing down days lie ahead.

What else is a boy to do?

The author is a journalist, communications and media analyst and a writer. The views expressed are solely his and do not represent the organisation he works for.

Email: paanyan7@gmail.com

Blog: ekowrites.blogspot.com

Twitter: @3ArthurAidoo