The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is oiling its propaganda machinery to ‘douse’ the flame ignited by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) vice presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, last Thursday at a public lecture on the economy where he shredded the government into pieces in respect of the economy.
The distinguished economist and former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, delivering a lecture titled, “The State of the Ghanaian Economy – A Foundation of Concrete or Straw,” rubbished the NDC’s economic performance saying the ruling party was rather taking Ghana backwards with its policies, citing declining growth rate from 14 percent inherited by President John Mahama to the current 3.9 percent.
NDC Dazed
Apparently dazed by Dr. Bawumia’s revelations, the NDC, led by the former propaganda secretary, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, (who is the current Minister of Transport), said he was leading a team of NDC propagandists to ‘correct’ the ‘untruths’ being ‘peddled’ by Dr. Bawumia in their “Setting the Records Straight” encounter. The NDC programme was expected to take place tomorrow at the party’s headquarters, but Fifi Kwetey announced last night that it had been postponed because of other engagements.
“Enough of the untruths being peddled; we are going to set the records straight from next week,” he posted on Facebook last Friday.
He said, “You may already be aware that every election year, The NDC Forum for Setting the Records Straight organises a number of press conferences to address pertinent issues ahead of the general election and this year will be no different. On the 14th of September, 2016, the first in the series of the press conferences will be held at the NDC headquarters in Accra.”
According to Fifi Kwetey, the forum would be attended by Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, the scandal-prone former Sports Minister who supervised Ghana’s worse FIFA World Cup participation in Brazil in 2012 amid serious corruption claims against him, but shielded by the president; Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, a deputy Minister of Education; Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, Minister of Energy and Petroleum; Casiel Ato Forson, a deputy Minister of Finance; Felix Kwakye Ofosu, a deputy Minister of Communications; Kojo Twum-Boafo of the Free Zones Board as well as Sam George Nettey of the presidency.
“I know majority of you can’t wait for the NDC’s “Setting The Records Straight” press conference slated for this Wednesday.
“But we have had to postpone it to a later date because the President, John Dramani Mahama is unveiling highlights of the party’s Manifesto tomorrow evening,” Mr Kwetey stated.
Falsehood
Fifi Kwetey is noted for peddling falsehood against his political opponents and the possibility of misleading Ghanaians at the so-called forum once again will not be ruled out.
In the heat of the 2008 general election, he published that then President John Agyekum Kufuor had stolen all Ghana’s gold reserves at the Bank of Ghana, but when pushed at the vetting committee to provide evidence, he admitted he lied.
He may be on another journey to spew out falsehood for political expediency in support of his paymasters.
Veep’s Challenge
Since Dr Bawumia’s public lecture, anxious Ghanaians have thrown the gauntlet to Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, who is an economist and head of the Economic Management Team of the government – which had succeeded in throwing the economy into disarray. He is to counter the NPP vice presidential candidate’s claims, especially since he (Amissah-Arthur) had earlier warned that he was ready to match the NPP boot for boot.
He announced at an NDC rally at Ashaiman that he was getting ready to disprove Dr. Bawumia’s claims, particularly on interest payments on loans, which the erudite NPP stalwart said were exceeding capital expenditure owing to unbridled borrowing.
He said that Dr. Bawumia misled the public on the interest payments issue and justified the high interests being paid by the country to lenders.
Mr Amissah-Arthur, former Governor of the Bank of Ghana, said that the money borrowed was purposely for projects so there was nothing wrong with payments of interests at whatever rate.
“So whenever you take money and pay interest or repay the amount you have collected, it is for the road that you have borrowed the money for so that is the one that you are paying, so there is no way you are paying interest for nothing at all; you are paying interest for projects that you have borrowed money for.”
“So how can you say that you pay interest more than capital expenditure? It is that capital expenditure money that you are paying as interest. This one is a simple thing in primary school; you learn it. I don’t know how people with higher qualifications cannot understand this simple context,” he charged.
Classification
The vice president explained, “In economics we call it classification. You have to classify that interest payment for the thing you use that money for. You do not pay money for nothing but you pay interest if you have not borrowed money. When you have borrowed money you are paying interest for that by saying this one for this road, for that hospital, this one for the project you have borrowed money for.”
“You cannot come and say that interest payment has exceeded capital expenditure so we have made a mistake.”
Dr. Bawumia has continuously insisted that the Mahama-led government had over-borrowed and that is why the government is paying so much to service the interests amounting to GH¢10.5 billion for this year alone – more than the GH¢9.5 billion inherited by the NDC administration from the NPP in 2009.
Model
Finance Minister Seth Terkper has remained largely unwavering in responding to issues about the economy.
Last Friday, Mr. Terkper said Dr Bawumia ‘masked’ the true state of the Ghanaian economy by being selective in his use of data and said that he (Dr. Bawumia) was using different models in his analysis of Ghana’s debt to suit a political objective of making the government unpopular.
“If we are going to use Dr Bawumia’s model, let us use it comprehensively because he cannot use other data when it suits his criticism and reverts to his model when it does not suit him,” he said, adding that the economist’s assertions that government’s debt management policy is not rational needed to be refuted.
“We have a debt management policy that has many objectives. We do not have only one objective. Given that the Ghanaian economy has begun to pick up, it will not make sense to keep a one billion Eurobond debt for ten or fifteen years,” Terkper said.
Running For Cover
Interestingly, when Mr. Terpker was asked to provide figures to contradict Dr. Bawumia’s debt to GDP ratio claims, he said he was travelling and would provide it on his return.
Casiel Ato Forson, who also tried to pour cold water on Dr. Bawumia’s revelations when given the chance to provide figures to contradict his (Dr. Bawumia’s) figures, said he was yet to leave his house for the office.
Public Debt
Dr Bawumia warned that government’s continuous borrowing would push the national debt to $42 billion in December.
He accused the government of failing to put to good use the huge loans it had contracted.
“In fact, 66 per cent of Ghana’s debt from independence has been accumulated under the presidency of John Mahama in just the last three-and-a-half years.
“By the end of 2008 following the adoption and implementation of the HIPC initiative, the government’s policy framework of fiscal discipline, the country’s debt to GDP ratio, had declined from 189 per cent in 2000, to 32 per cent of GDP by 2008,’ he disclosed.
He added, “In terms of the dollar equivalent of the borrowed amount, this government has borrowed some 39 billion dollars in eight years.”
“When I mention this, they either get confused or pretend to get confused; so for the sake of clarity, I have put in this document” (referring to the paper he was delivering) “a table that shows them clearly the dollar equivalence of all the amounts borrowed from 2009 to 2016, in fact by December 2016, the government would have borrowed $42 billion dollars.”
“The government would claim no doubt, that the book value of the debt is $26 billion dollars; but quite frankly, that is a weak argument.”
“The only reason why the book value of the debt is $26 billion is because we are applying today’s exchange rate which the same government succeed in collapsing to the value of the debt; and not the exchange rate at the time the money was borrowed. With this major increase in the debt, Ghana’s debt to GDP ratio has increased from 32 percent in 2008, to 72 percent at the end of 2015,” Dr Bawumia explained.
By William Yaw Owusu