President Nana Akufo-Addo
VICE-PRESIDENT Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the Akufo-Addo government has delivered 78% of its 388 manifesto promises made during the 2016 campaign that won the New Patriotic Party (NPP) the general election.
He said the NPP came by the 78% through what he called the most recent validation exercise undertook by the government at the end of January 2020.
He gave the sector breakdown as 78% achievement at the Youth and Sports, 82% for Trade and Industry, 42% for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, 70% for social development, 70% for security, and 78% for Science, Technology, Innovation and Environment.
On the energy and petroleum sector, Dr. Bawumia said the government had achieved 72% and delivered 94% and 80% on education and economy, respectively.
With regard to governance, corruption and public accountability, he said the government had made a modest gain of 53%, whilst it had delivered 100% on Foreign Affairs.
“This is just after three years of work and we are still working to do more,” Dr. Bawumia told participants at Government Town Hall Meeting and Results Fair in Kumasi yesterday.
The event, which was held under the theme: “Demonstrating Fulfillment of Our Promises”, was a platform to account to the public on the execution of government’s programmes.
Economic Transformation
The Vice-President continued that it was an undeniable fact that there had been remarkable turnaround in the Ghanaian economy, and attributed the gains to vision, dedication and competence.
“Over the past three years, the difference is vision, dedication and competence,” Dr. Bawumia stated and indicated that the NPP government had outperformed the NDC in virtually every sphere of the economy.
“We have appropriately combined economic theory as taught in our textbooks with the collective experience of the economic management team and cabinet and good leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the management of the economy,” he stressed.
Textbook Economics
“Can you imagine an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant, after qualifying, decides not to use what they studied at school? Won’t you forget about everything you studied in the textbooks?” he asked rhetorically.
“Unfortunately, if you don’t take your time and read and understand your textbooks in a subject like an economics, you will end up mismanaging the economy with ‘Akonfem’ economic management techniques with disastrous results,” he stressed.
The Vice-President said Ghana had seen this kind of attitude before, and that it is better to combine economic theories with practical experience to achieve positive results.
Predicting NDC
“I have no doubts that the NDC will come out and challenge what I have said here today. But when they come out just ask them to bring contrary data. They shouldn’t just talk; they should come up with contrary data to contradict what I have said here today,” he noted.
“And I bet you when you challenge them they will either insult you or run away to Burkina Faso. That is what is going to happen,” he said in a rather humorous tone.
4 More To Do
Vice-President Bawumia said even though the Akufo-Addo government had made a solid start in its three years in office, it had not yet reached where it wanted to take Ghana to, saying “we have done a lot including the establishment of the Zongo Development Fund and all of that. We’ve done major, major things but we’re not yet where we want to be.”
“That is why we are asking the good people of Ghana to give Nana Akufo-Addo four more to do more for you… This year has been designated by the President as a year of roads and the country will soon see evidence of this,” he said.
“We have many more schools to construct, we have malaria to eradicate, we have jobs to create, digitization agenda to complete. We also need to consolidate the gains we have made so far,” he added.
Dr. Bawumia said in spite of the numerous achievements, government would be the first to admit that it had not attained perfection in everything that it had done, and concluded that the NPP government is a better manager of the economy than the NDC.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi