It appears that members of the leading opposition National Democratic Congress, unable to stand on their feet and engage government, are finding bullets from the Sam Jonah evaluation piece, and latching onto the social media craze of #FixtheCountry to arrive at conclusions which the originators themselves have not drawn.
Additionally, they are relying on the current galamsey crisis, which we must all take the blame for, and pushing an agenda to create problems for the government.
Confusion of thought
As is the tradition with this current stock of politicians in the NDC, frivolity, rather than substance, appears to have become the name of the game, even when facts and figures do not support such stance.
But for the available records, we do not believe this is a lazy government incapable of delivering. Government has, indeed, proven that fact.
Indeed, in terms of a national vision, the Akufo-Addo gpvernment seems to have been more than capable, since its inception, in fixing the mess it inherited.
Facts
The facts, which members of the NDC are refusing to admit in the face of the bare records, is that Ghana – from the 2016 Mahama economy till the COVID-19 pandemic – had leaped in terms of development.
In agriculture, health, education, industry, for instance, the figures showed that the country had not merely exited an IMF programme, but shocked the world by its performance, for instance, in being a leader in economic growth, such that everybody wants to do business with.
How else could we refer to that if that is not an achievement?
Again from the export of cocoa and gold, through food to traditional exports to improvement in livelihoods, Ghana had fared modestly better, though we could, by dint of commitment and hard work, have done more.
Ghana’s economy, before the novel coronavirus pandemic, was on stable ground, having experienced a positive turnaround from the collapse at the end of 2016. A growth of 3.4 per cent at the end of 2016 was turned into an average seven per cent annually.
Even in the pandemic that has forced governments across the world to spend a staggering US$16 trillion in order to save lives and protect livelihoods, Ghana posted positive provisional growth of about half a per cent (1.3% for non-oil). The pandemic has resulted in global Debt-to-GDP rising to 97 per cent and projected to hit 99 per cent this year, with average fiscal deficits reaching 12 per cent for advanced countries alone.
Global growth, according to the IMF, contracted by an estimated 3.5 per cent, with the United Kingdom, for example, suffering its deepest contraction in 300 years since 1709 in 2020.
These, not withstanding, Ghana’s public debt only rose 69.71 per cent to GDP, excluding the financial services sector bailout (76.08 per cent), and fiscal deficit of 11.7 per cent. Without the bailout of the financial services sector, our Debt-to-GDP ratio remains within market expectations (average of 59.7% in the four years from 2017). Economic activity, measured by the Composite Index of Economic Activity (CIEA), in real terms, increased significantly from 8.3 per cent in December 2020 to 13.9 per cent in January 2021. This is four times what it was a year earlier in January 2020.
Our woes
We must all admit that our woes, today, are not that we do not have a great country. It is that we appear not to love our nation enough to ‘die’ for it – from the politician who is looking at his paycheque to the technocrat shuffling documents and pretending he is working to the clock-watching office clerk and ‘insane’ galamsey boys and girls.
This government, again, may not have gotten it all right. However, we cannot deny the fact that, probably more than any government in our national history, the current administration has supported industry, agriculture, employment generation, health and education – beyond the huge reforms in banking for which, like the galamsey scourge, government has paid an expensive political price.
A serious government believes in exchange of ideas, instead of fire; and that is why it has no intention of fighting genuine reforms or embracing ideas that would spur growth and improve lives and livelihoods.
That is also why we believe people like Sir Sam Jonah, the NDC and the convenors of the #FixTheCountry must also agree and welcome others’ views when we are told to join hands with the government to build the Ghana we all desire.
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