Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia last week re-affirmed the government’s commitment to ensuring that Ghanaians continue to benefit from programmes and policies initiated by the Akufo-Addo government.
Like any sincere leader would do, he admitted, however, that there are is still a lot of grounds to cover as government focuses on tackling the challenges that have come about as a result of the global pandemic.
Of course, for those Ghanaians some of whom may have their own partisan agenda, creation of jobs and fixing of bad roads across the country need to be fast-tracked. This may be understandable, considered against the fast pace the New Patriotic Party is known to solve problems.
Facts
Unfortunately, as the Vice-President intimated, no Ghanaian is a stranger to the effects of COVID-19 and particularly how typical African economies like Senegal, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, which had previously made giant hurdles, had, all of a sudden, dipped as a result of the severe impact of the pandemic.
Yet, these were countries which had scored impressive growth, according to World Bank Reports.
Many appear to have forgotten that before the pandemic Ghana was ranked among the world’s fastest growing economies and the best in terms of attracting investors. And this was a nation just coming out of a World Bank programme foisted on it by another political party and government.
Sustainable energy sector
Before the pandemic, government had already put in place effective sustainable energy supply structures, including a digitisation of supply systems to customers that reduces stress.
That is aside of affordable rates that government magnanimously put in place to help reduce cost of living and the cost of doing business for both formal and informal actors.
Again, that is also aside of the several initiatives in the health and educational sectors that brought on board hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates whose opportunities for accessing jobs in the public sector were curtailed by a government that was ready to blame the World Bank for its woes rather than innovate and help improve lives and livelihoods.
Four more
Thankfully, the government still has four more years to do more. And for a government that had proved to the Ghanaian that it was not a mistake retaining it in power, we believe we can still chew on the NPP’s first-term achievements to conclude that it can be relied on to deliver what are yet to be delivered in the next four years.
That it can be trusted to deliver is the reason why investors keep coming and setting up industry upon industry; it is the reason why our development partners keep relating well with us and it is the reason why our next-door neighbours keep trooping into the country to find work to do, however ‘menial.’
Economic costs
Government’s detractors know that, but for the resilience of the structures put in place before the COVID-19 hit the globe, Ghana would have gone the way other African countries have gone, including importing cereals and staples, vegetables and poultry as well as fish.
Fortunately for us in Ghana, most of the cost element, including water and energy, had already been borne or absorbed, in reducing the effects of the pandemic on our socio-economic lives.
That is aside of what government had engineered in the health and education sectors to mollify the pressure on the ordinary Ghanaian. But we can also cite support to industry to keep workers on their jobs in protecting lives and livelihoods.
Ignorance
Ignoring all this multiplicity of initiatives, which government had put in place to address poverty, joblessness, drudgery and social stress, and conjuring a tall list of fictional claims about government being ineffective is like having one’s mouth full of his lunch ration and still griping that the quartermaster is sitting on the stores, while the troops go hungry.
Yes, all may not be rosy, but we must point out that, in the face of the records, we can be assured that the government has shown it is in the business of fixing the country.
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