https://www.myjoyonline.com/bawumia-speaks-mahama-has-created-toxic-mix-of-incompetence-and-corruption/-------https://www.myjoyonline.com/bawumia-speaks-mahama-has-created-toxic-mix-of-incompetence-and-corruption/

The Vice-Presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, is comparing the economy under the previous NPP government and the current NDC government.

He says every aspect of the economy has plummeted despite the availability of oil revenues which the Kufuor government did not have the benefit of.

He is comparing sector by sector and insisting that the NPP government did extremely better compared to the NDC government.

Dr. Bawumia points out serious economic challenges such as the cedi’s depreciation, energy crisis, slowed economic growth, reduce investments in capital projects, etc.

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Government has presented over 10 budgets. Minority leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu puts it at 17. He says all the budgets promised a better Ghana but it has all been a mirage. Even the current budget presented in Parliament has been replaced.

The latest economic mantra of the 2016 budget is "Changing Lives". He says the consistent failure of economic policies in creating a Better Ghana exposes government's latest claim that the Mahama government is about Changing Lives. The NDC continues to believe this promise show it has lost touch with the realities. He maintains the economy is deformed and no where near transformation.

It shows " you cannot use propaganda to run the economy". The NDC government has delivered one of the worst economic performances since 1957. The NDC government’s economic performance is a “record of monumental waste of an historic opportunity to transform the economy”.

He says comparisons between NPP economic trackrecord and NDC’s is proof of his claims.

The NPP inherited a GDP growth rate of 3.7% in 2000.

In 2001 under NPP, GDP growth was 4.3%

In 2002 it was 4.5%

In 2003, it wa 5.3%

In 2004 it was 5.7%

In 2005 it was 5.9%

In 2006 it was 6.6%

In 2007 it was 8.4%. This is indeed steady growth and it occurred without revenue from oil.

Under the NPP, the total value of the economy grew from 5.1billion dollars to 28.5bn dollars, representing 500% growth even in the face of a global economic crisis in 2007. Ghana was transformed from a low income to a middle-income economy under NPP.

Under the NDC  government, the economy grew by 7.4% in 2009

In 2012, it was 8.8%

In 2013, it was 7.1%

In 2014, it went further down to 4.1%

2015 provisional figures put growth at 4.1%

For the first time since oil production, oil-fueled GDP is higher than non-oil GDP.

 

Agriculture sector

Although agriculture grew to 5.3% in 2014. This was largely because of logging activities to the detriment of crop and animal farming.

One of the reasons, agriculture is suffering is because of low budgetary allocation. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture received 3% of the budget allocated in 2009.

In 2012 it went down to 1.9%

In 2013 it went down to 1.03%

And in 2015 to 1.1% of the budget was allocated to both Agric and Fisheries  ministries. This is a “paltry allocation” despite a convention Ghana has signed on, promising to devote 6% of its budget to Agriculture.

Real growth in agricultures was 0.8% in 2011 and 0.04% in 2015. “We are at the rock bottom" he says. Crop production got negative growth in 2015.

Food imports were $600m in 2008 by the time the NPP left government but it has risen to $1.5bn in 2014. The country is on the brink of a serious shortage in the supply of common maize.

Crop production was projected at 5.8% in 2015 and later reviewed 4.1% but the actuals when it came in was -1.1%.

Cocoa production

Mass spraying exercises and high-tech seeds during the NPP administration doubled cocoa production from 341,000 metric tonnes to 737,000 metric tonnes in 2003-2004 and one million tonnes in 210 to 2011.

Under the NDC government, there is a special agricultural import levy on basic farm inputs. Bawumia says this is "unbelievable”. The levy has conspired to increase the cost of farming and the cost of food.

The poor who spend 60% of incomes on food were hard hit by the increase in food prices. Government later dropped the levy.

In 2014 and 2015 about 180,000 metric tonnes of subsidized fertilizers were allocated by government but was not fully implemented.

Another testament to a sector in crisis is that Ghana has about 3,000 farmers to one extension officer while the international standard is 500 farmers to one. The extension officers in Ghana are inching towards retirement without any clear plan to replace them.

Although government made "desperate attempts" to supply smart phones to extension officers if transport hurdles for the extension officers are not addressed, the smart phones will amount to nothing.

Youth in Agriculture program, he says  is a " typical destruction of policy focus", because the program is being mismanaged. The yields are low, the beneficiaries are party supporters who walk way without paying for the monies they received.

What exactly have they been transforming if Agricuture and manufacturing sectors have recorded abysmal growths?

Ghana could not achieve even one of the criterion for the third conecutive year in the push for a common currency in ECOWAS.

For the second successive year, the Finance Ministry has refused to publish Ghana's standing in ECOWAS' push for the ECO because it will show Ghana's "smoothness level" among other West frican economies.

For three successive years, Ghana has double-digit budget deficit.

The 6.5% GDP deficit under the NPP which the NDC criticised is now the target which the NDC government wants to attain under Mahama.

 

Public debt

By 2008 total debt was 9.5billion Ghana cedis. In the last seven years under NDC it is now 99 billion Ghana cedis. About 45billion of this is domestic debt.

About 90% of Ghana' debt since independence has been accumulated under the NDC government. Mahama said 41% was accumulated by the NPP since independence." I really coundn't believe my ears. I though I misheard" To be mild this is not true. By 2008 it had decliend

As a result of NPP's HIPC initiative Ghana debt which was $6.1billion in 2000 declined  to 3.8 billion dollars by 2008.

Assume that exchange is 1cedi to 1 dollar today, if you borrow a 100 cedis the equivalent is 100 dollars. If the exchange rate goes down, it means 100 dollars can be 25 cedis. But you cannot say you borrowed 25 cedis. It is 100 dollars you borrowed.

72% of external debt stock was accumulated during the last seven years.He says interest payment is five times the budgetary allocations of  Ministries of Road, Trade and Industry and at least three more ministries.

Yet government is planning further Euro bonds

Interest payment is six times Ghana’s oil revenue in 2015 because of government’s reckless borrowing. He described government's borrowing spree as going for a microfiance loan which is more expensive to pay for a bank loan which is comparatively cheaper and yet government feels no shame

Energy crisis

He reads a government statement that promised 300MW by October 2012. At the October 4 launch of the NDC Manifesto they said load-shedding would be the ting of the past. They promised 5,000 MW by 2015. Currently we produce less than 2,000MW. Mahama promised to export power.

Mahama said during IEA debate defined loadshedding as supply exceeding demand. Outages is problems of unexpected light outs cuased by problems such as loaded transformers.

At IEA, Mahama described loadshedding as an act of God.  A ship anchor damaged the pipeline in 2012 hence the need for loadshedding. Loadshedding will end mid-November 2012.

820 new MW will be added in 2013 and loadshedding will be a thing of the past by the end of my first year, Mahama said.

New deadline was that it will end in May 2013. Mahama said in December 2013 that energy crisis has been solved but Ghanaians are not thanking him. Then Energy Minister asked Ghanaians to pray for rains. Later the Power Minister promised to end 'dumsor' by December 2015

Mahama has said the dumsor is not a money problem. Then later he said dumsor will end if we are prepared to pay more for power. In November 2014, he promised that dumsor will end before the elections in 2016.

Bawumia says Ghana would spend 225million dollars if we bought the barge. He refers to ACEP assessment that it will cost us $1bn in 10 years of using the barge. We could have built a 1000MW plant.

“This really does not make sense”

Government owes ECG, VRA while the two owes other stakeholders in the power sector Ghana owes Nigeria $180million.

How much of the huge borrowings have been invested into the power sector. He suggested dumsor is not a priority. Government is also in denial. For the NDC, dumsor is not an economic issue it is a political issue.

He says solving dumsor has not been a priority for government. It will only become a priority as we get close to elections.

Ghana has committed with the IMF to increase the tariffs. The so-called public consultations by PURC are a sham.

Government would lay off workers after the 2016 elections. By December 2015, the plan to lay-off will be ready and after 2016, the size of the civil service will be rationalized, Bawumia quoted an IMF document.

He demands the rationalization plan should be public and transparent to the Ghanaian people.

Increase in capital gains, withholding tax, re-imposition of excise duty, new energy tax and a mitigation levy into the pricing formula for utilities.

The 2016 budget is the same as the 2012 election budget in the way allocations have been done. The Administration sector has been increased for election purposes while other productive sectors have reduced budget allocations.

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According to IMF most of government borrowing has been used for consumption not development

He said government has been bloating projects

A runway rehabilitation in Kumasi cost 23.8million dollars but a whole new aerodrome at Ho will cost 25million dollars

Was the runway in Kumasi paved with gold?

He says Ghanaians are finding new ways to describe Mahama since he does not want to be described as incompetent.

He says Mahama’s government is competent at mismanaging the economy

They are very competent at creating looting and sharing

This government is very competent propaganda, competent at perpetuating dumsor

Competent at collapsing NHIS, cancellation of teacher trainee allowances, competent at failing to honour statutory payments, competent at not paying contractors and making SADA Guinea fowls run to Burkina Faso.

And most importantly, it is very competent at failing to deliver its promises.

He says Mahama is upset at being described incompetent but appears to have accepted that his government is corrupt

Mahama has created toxic mixture of incompetence and corruption

The Senchi accord trumpeted by government has been ignored. The government no longer talks about it. Mahama denied going to IMF but he eventually went. He has lost credibility.

 It is time to change this government. It is time to build a globally competitive economy.

NPP will make the economy the most business friendly in Africa. He says NPP will pass a fiscal responsibility act to ensure government is bound to be accountable and responsible.

Government will deepen good governance by pushing for the election of DCE and the separation of the Attorney-General from the Ministry of Justice. NPP will implement a national ID and a debit card so that once you have a national ID you will also have a bank account. It will help move Ghana to a cashless economy.

The NPP will also set up an Independent Value For Money Unit

There will be a reduction of corporate tax from 25% to 20%. Abolish VAT on financial services and real estate sales and reduce withholding taxes to 2008 levels.

He says the minimum of 19 cents on international calls is "stone-age" and the cause of SIM Box Fraud and allow the market to determine the price.

NPP will remove all import duties on raw materials and spare parts and reduce capital gains tax.

NPP will restore teacher and nursing training allowances. Government will also make agriculture a "money-making business".

NPP will set up the Afram Plains Agric Development Authority and the Accra Plains Irrigation project.

The Tema Oil Refinery  should not be reduced to a storage facility for the oil distribution companies. NPP  will set up the Zongo Development Fund as we promised in the 2012 manifesto and set up a fund to grow the arts and entertainment industry.

It is difficult to become a doctor or lawyer in Ghana than in the US. Yet Ghana imports doctors from Cuba who can’t speak English

“We have to make Ghana a land of opportunity not a land of obstacles”.  He system is a ‘Pull Him Down system that must be crashed. Ghana under NPP will never enter into an IMF program.

Change is coming

Hope is coming

Nana Akufo-Addo is coming.

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