Time it was when the country came close to the precipice, her ability to import fuel challenged by foreign exchange dearth.
As government watched the approaching crisis, it took one man’s ingenuity to come up with a way out; the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme and Gold-for-Oil.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia it was whose outside-the-box thinking cracked the nut at a time many were oblivious to the looming energy crisis.
It is instructive to note that some countries facing similar challenges suffered national security hiccups.
It was a period in world history when geopolitics was exacting terrible fallouts for all countries; the global pandemic occasioned by COVID-19 and the Russo/Ukrainian war were the dominant issues.
It was regrettable that at the time, political opportunists campaigned against the government, dismissing the point that the two aforementioned factors were exacting negative effects on our economy and stretching us beyond our seams.
The Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, the cornerstone of Dr. Bawumia’s ingenuity, was a welcome relief for the country, which at the time he proposed it and proceeded to implement it was derided by some who lacked that foresight in governance. They deserve pardon because inventions and innovations in history endured derision from those who doubted the human brain’s ability to come up with those feats.
Even as we relish the dividends of the innovation, mischievous political activists have sought to downplay the gains. They even throw dust into the eyes of the vulnerable in society by claiming the intellectual ownership of the innovation.
Originators of interventions which leave lasting mark on our fortunes as a nation should be acknowledged. Dr. Bawumia made little or no noise about how for instance his Gold-for-Oil theory, hinged upon a natural resource with a global appeal, will inure to the interest of a threatened economy. For others, this should have been a rare opportunity to run with on the propaganda space.
We are where we are today in terms of stocked up gold reserves because of the aforementioned intervention after swallowing the bitter pill prescribed by the previous administration.
A vulnerable economy which could have gone bust as a result of the pressures of dependence upon the dollar could not have contained the repercussions of the times, but for such an intervention.
The originator of the programme has refused to behave like the lizard and the iroko tree in Chinua Achebe’s classic literature Things Fall Apart. The lizard which jumps from the iroko tree to the ground would praise itself even if nobody else does so.
Dr. Bawumia will only refer to such feats when it becomes necessary. Had he been the propaganda-driven type, the story would have been different.
Many Ghanaians still refer to the COVID-19 period and pose questions as to what could have befallen the country had Dr. Bawumia’s formula not popped up.
Politics should go beyond propaganda but about whose thoughts exacted life-changing interventions which would leave behind long-lasting legacies regardless of their political affiliations. Mobile interoperability continues to make life easy for Ghanaians, and to think that the then Vice President used an amount below what others had penciled adds to his integrity.