Unfortunately, however, the following cacophonous renditions have been the usual anthem of the ‘brassbound’ loyalists of National Democratic Congress (NDC), who are still nursing the wounds from their humiliating 2016 election defeat:
“You shrieked, grumbled, censured and tagged us corrupt and incompetent and as a result the vast majority of Ghanaians bought into your isolated thinker’s assertion and voted us out of power, so stop your relentless grouching and fix the pieces together.”
“Indeed, we woefully failed to resource the security forces adequately and as a result they could not confront the rampant crimes head-on, but you are now in charge so equip the security forces and see to it that the insecurity is brought under control as soon as practicable.”
“We informed you that we have voraciously consumed all the meat on the bone, but you ignored us and told discerning Ghanaians that we were kidding.”
“Now that you are in power, display your magical powers and put more meat on the bone in order to feed the impoverished Ghanaians and erect more infrastructural projects”.
“We could not manage the economy and that was the reason why discerning Ghanaians voted you into power, so put a stop to your endless lamentations and breathe life into the asphyxiated economy”.
Dearest reader, this bizarre attitude, so to speak, could be seen as a listless resignation on the part of a political party that wants to win power. With all due respect, why are they so desperate to reclaim power if they are indeed not prepared to govern?
Obviously, it is extremely frustrating to listen to the views of inflexible NDC supporters, whose lives did not transform under the NDC government, contrary to what their leaders would want us to believe.
Sadly, however, the inflexible apologists won’t depart from their so-called loyalty.
What is more, despite their leaders much touted social democratic ideals, the successive NDC governments failed to implement a single social intervention, but the die-hard supporters are unmoved by such an unpardonable dereliction of duty.
Apparently, it was the NPP under the able leadership of President Kufuor that introduced the Free Maternal Care, the School Feeding Programme, the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Mass Transport System, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the National Youth Employment Programme, now known as GYEDA, and many other social interventions.
As a matter of fact, the NDC leaders have been manipulating their way into power all the time. For they usually resort to vague rhetoric and political gimmicks.
Yes, they are cunning lots who are ever so desperate to secure power for their own vested interests. For if that was not the case, how come they turned their back on almost all the promises they gave to the unsuspecting Ghanaian electorate?
Ironically, with all the promises, former President Mahama and his NDC government failed to end the dumsor, failed to implement the one-time NHIS premium, jobs were not readily available for the jobless, the economy sank deeper and deeper into the mire, they reneged on their promise to keep ‘lean’ government, Ghanaians became poorer and poorer, sleazes and corruption escalated to immeasurable proportions, endless borrowings, amongst others.
It is also worth pointing out that agricultural growth was around 7.4 per cent in 2012, but the erstwhile NDC government nauseatingly reversed it to around 2.5 per cent as of October 2016 (GSS).
But as I write, the Ministry of Agriculture, under the able leadership of Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has rolled out flagship programmes such as Planting for Food and Jobs, Planting for Export and Rural Development and Rearing for Food and Jobs, which are expected to boost the agricultural growth.
It is also worthy of mention that the erstwhile Mahama government could not hold on to the late Mills’ “unprecedented” single digit inflation, as he somehow managed to move the inflation to double digits (15.4% as of October 2016).
However, as I write, the Akufo-Addo government has dramatically reversed the inflation rate to a single digit.
More importantly, the Akufo-Addo government efficiently raised the economic growth within a short space of time. Ghana’s economy grew provisionally by 8.5 per cent in 2017 compared to 3.7 per cent in 2016 (Ghana Statistical Service, 2018).
Currently, Ghana’s economic growth stands at around 8.6% from 3.4% in December 2016.
Interestingly, in the first two years of the Akufo-Addo administration, the industry sector recorded the highest growth rate of 16.7 per cent followed by agriculture 8.4 per cent and the services 4.3 per cent.
Services share of GDP decreased from 56.8 per cent in 2016 to 56.2 per cent in 2017. The sector’s growth rate also decreased from 5.7 per cent in 2016 to 4.3 per cent in 2017.
However, two of the subsectors in the services sector recorded double-digit growth rates, including Information and Communication 13.2 per cent and Health and Social Work 14.4 per cent.
The industry sector, the highest growing sector with a GDP share of 25.5 per cent, had its growth rate increasing from -0.5 per cent in 2016 to 16.7 per cent in 2017.
The Mining and Quarrying subsector recorded the highest growth of 46.7 per cent in 2017.
The agricultural sector expanded from a growth rate of 3.0 per cent in 2016 to 8.4 per cent in 2017. Its share of GDP, however, declined from 18.7 per cent in 2016 to 18.3 per cent in 2017. Crops remain the largest activity with a share of 14.2 per cent of GDP.
The non-oil annual GDP growth rate decreased from 5.0 per cent in 2016 to 4.9 per cent in 2017. The 2017 non-oil GDP for industry recorded a growth rate of 0.4 per cent, compared with 4.9 per cent in 2016. Growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 reached 8.1 per cent compared to 9.7 per cent in the third quarter (GNA, 2018).
So, to the die-hard NDC loyalists: engage in a carefully considered reflection and consider voting instead for Madam Akua Donkor since you love to hate NPP for no apparent reasons.
As a matter of fact, Madam Akua Donkor, who has no classroom education, will not even go for unreasonable loans and then resort to IMF stringent conditionalities.
And more so Madam Akua Donkor, who is a devoted farmer, knows the importance of agriculture in the economic growth of a country like Ghana.
So, Madam Akua Donkor will definitely pay attention to the agricultural sector and ensure that the sector does not grow 0.04 as it happened in ex-President Mahama’s government.
It is quite bizarre that the ‘brassbound’ NDC faithful who are currently enjoying uninterrupted electricity, low inflation, tax reductions, favourable economic growth, gargantuan savings on Free SHS, amongst others, would have the temerity to censure the NPP administration.
In sum, Ghana under the erstwhile NDC administration, so to speak, went into economic meltdown which regrettably brought to pass harsh socio-economic standards of living.
Given all the circumstances, it would be somewhat unreasonable for anybody to suggest that to err is human and, therefore, the insensitive NDC must be given another chance so soon.
By K. Badu, UK