Until Ken Ofori Atta was relieved of his position as the Finance Minister this month, anytime someone cared to know why the Ghanaian Economy was in such a terrible mess after almost eight (8) years in office, his response has been “Mahama left us a mess”.
This year, 2024, is an election year and the Economy, one of the major issues that should feature prominently in the campaigns of the political parties and the scrutiny of the Media, is conspicuously absent, rather the character of the Vice-President, as to whether he is a liar or not is on the front burner.
Google search for the biggest liar in Ghana, showed the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the leader and Presidential candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Since the end of the NPP’s primaries and the election of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the leader and Presidential candidate of the NPP, the news has set many tongues wagging, with the internet, agog with his character as a liar.
I was taken aback by the major political parties and Ghanaians in general, for abandoning the real problems of the country and rather focusing on the characters of the Vice President and not his profession as an Economist.
So what are the major problems of Ghanaians as we approach December 2024?
Ghana’s major problems as we approach the 2024 elections are the Economy, Corruption, Unemployment, standard of living, and very importantly, Galamsey.
My curiosity drove me to Google to find out for myself if the assertion that our Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is the greatest liar in Ghana is true. And this is what Google had to say when I enquired.
Who is the biggest liar in Ghana according to Google?
According to Google, the image of the Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, appears in the search results when the question “Who is the biggest liar in Ghana?” is entered into the Google search. Given his position in Government and the reputation of certain politicians for lying, it’s not completely unbelievable, but is it true?
The first thing that springs to mind is that this may be a smear campaign, orchestrated by the politician’s opponents to discredit him. In any case, there is a more sensible justification for why Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s image should come up in response to the Google search.
Describing Google’s inner workings, the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai said, “anytime you type in a keyword, as Google, we have gone out and crawled and stored copies of billions of websites pages in our index. And we take the keyword and match it against their pages and rank them based on over 200 signals – things like relevance, freshness, popularity, how other people are using it”.
“And based on that, at any given time, we try to rank and find the best search results for that query. And then evaluate it to an objective guideline. And that is how we make sure the process is working. This is working at scale and we don’t manually intervene on any particular search result”.
“And so it is clear from the above that Google doesn’t consider Dr. Bawumia to be the biggest liar in Ghana (Google sounding very diplomatic). However, Dr. Bawumia’s picture may have shown up since many Ghanaians have used the keyword along with his name and image”.
Now Google has confirmed Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is Ghana’s greatest liar, let’s put the characters of our leading politicians behind us and focus on the real problems we have at hand.
The ruling NPP administration has been in office for close to 8 years and currently as we approach December 7, elections, no sector of the administration can be said to be functioning as expected.
The head of the Economic Management Team (EMT), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the Vice-President and Presidential candidate of the ruling NPP and the dismissed Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta are the two who have steered the Ghanaian economy since 2017.
Ever since January, 2017, when the ruling NPP assumed office, their chorus has always been “Mahama left the Economy in a mess”. This has been going on for the past seven years, two months.
His Excellency John Dramani Mahama is a candidate for the December 2024 elections and is in disagreement with the ruling NPP administration and has come out strongly to respond to Ken Ofori Atta’s sing-song tale of “Mahama left the Economy in a mess”.
John Mahama’s responses, very intriguing, especially for those who did not know what really was in the national coffers when John Mahama/NDC handed over to the Akufo Addo/Bawumia/NPP administration.
I have had the opportunity to see and read the state in which Ghana’s Economy was before HE John Dramani Mahama left office, amid the accusations from Akufo Addo/Bawumia/NPP administration that the NDC left them a bankrupt economy.
I have also heard from former President John Dramani Mahama, about the kind of Economy he bequeathed to the ruling NPP Government.
Former President John Mahama, in many of his interviews across the country, and various Television and Radio stations, dismissed President Akufo Addo and the NPP’s propaganda that “Mahama left us a mess, we came and repaired your mess”.
In one such interview, he said, “Before I left office, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had said, Ghana’s Economy was going to grow by 8% and it did grow by 8% and more by the end of 2017”.
He continued saying, “In 2018, the Economy dropped when the NPP Government’s economic policies started kicking in if you look at the GDP growth rate from a high of 8% that they inherited from me. It started going down from the following year, dropping from 6% to 5% until it hit zero at the time COVID-19 hit Ghana”.
“So the NPP’s myth about “Mahama left us a mess”, “Mahama left us a mess”, should stop. When the NPP came into office, the Kufour Eurobond, was left with $270 million to pay, where did the Akufo Addo/Bawumia/NPP administration get the money to pay”?
“I left that money in the Sinking Fund because I knew that debt was due for payment and as a visionary leader, I had made provision for it even before it was due”.
“I know if a new Government came in, it was going to be difficult finding $270 million at once to pay off the Kufuor Eurobond, so I left the money in the Sinking Fund, they met it and in October of that year, they took it and paid the Kufourburo, after that they did not put any money in the Sinking Fund again, that was why when COVID-19 hit Ghana, they couldn’t find money for the Health sector”.
“I set up the Stabilization Fund, when COVID-19 hit Ghana, the Akufo Addo/NPP Government didn’t know where to find money, we (NDC) told them to go and look into the Stabilization Fund, I left money in there, the Akufo Addo/NPP administration went and took $300 million from the Stabilization Fund”.
“I also set up the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund and I put $270 million seed money in that fund, today that is the money the Akufo Addo/Bawumia/NPP Government is using to build the Agenda 111 hospitals”.
“So how could I have left you a mess”? John Mahama asked vehemently.
“The NPP is good at propaganda, they keep repeating their lies, we came to meet your mess, we came to meet your mess”.
“In 2016, for the first time in Ghana’s history, we (NDC) ran the Government budget without taking one cedi from the Bank of Ghana (BoG), zero borrowing from the Central Bank”.
“NPP in 2021, got the Bank of Ghana to print GHc42 billion and GHc35 billion in 2022, that is why the Central Bank is today broke because it made a loss of more than GHc60 billion, printing money for the Akufo Addo/NPP administration”.
“When I was President, the Central Bank made a profit of more than a Billion cedis and so that propaganda, “Mahama left us a mess” should stop once and for all”.
“The NPP did not inherit a mess, they inherited an economy that was doing very well. It is the NPP’s mismanagement, their clueless Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, and their clueless head of the Economic Management Team (EMT), who now want to run away from the Economic mess to become the champion of digitization”.
Source – Jojo Bruce-Quansah
info@ghananewsnow.co.uk
