The Chief Policy Analyst at the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options says the Akufo-Addo-led government could have performed better in his first term in office.  

Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby stated that considering the number of Parliamentary seats lost by the governing party in the December 7, polls it is evident that the citizenry lost some interest in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

“Given especially the turnout of Parliament. The first time we have had essentially a hung parliament in the Fourth Republic. And so when you move from a position of 169 seats and have the same as the opposition of 137 each, I cannot call this a good performance.”

At the end of the 2020 general elections, the NPP lost the majority of its seats in Parliament to the opposition NDC and an independent candidate creating a situation of a hung Parliament.

The former VALCO boss in an interview with JoyNews’ Winston Amoah on UPfront said Akufo-Addo performed slightly below average.

He explained that government at a point turned a deaf ear to criticisms concerning the implementation of some policies.

Citing such instances, he said, “The free SHS gave a very big advantage and a head start because it was one policy that touched about every home in this country, but its implementation had a certain difficulty which I believe the government was not prepared to listen to because he saw every criticism as trying to derail the policy.

"And some of them [critics] were very genuine and many people from the implementers to even parents got a little bit upset about some of it and you can see the very quick and ready junking of double track should tell you that that was something many people were not happy with and complained about yet it was defended as the best thing,” he added.

Dr Wereko-Brobby also insisted that, if Akufo-Addo performed extraordinarily well, his victory should have been far more spectacular than it turned out to be.

“Let's look at the presidential advantage in 2016, his margin of victory over 500,00 and 2016 was almost 1 million reducing numbers cannot be judged as an improvement in performance.”