We wonder what the National Democratic Congress (NDC) would say when the effects of the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East dawn upon us.
The marginal hike in the cost of crude oil on the world market, a situation prompted by the hostilities, for now is manageable and not enough to make screaming headlines. When however the unsavoury situation persists in the next few days and the targeting of oil infrastructures by Iran, in the major producing countries housing American interests continues, the story would alter.
The war is widening in scope, with a retaliatory response from pro-Iran Hezbollah militants in Lebanon against Israel reigniting the war between the two on Sunday.
Saudi oil company, ARAMCO, has been torched by an Iranian missile.
The Strait of Hormuz, held by Iran, which is passage for 20 percent of the world’s oil movement, is facing movement restrictions. With the Iranians bent on causing maximum damage across locations with American interests, we must brace ourselves for harrowing days.
When the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out and the COVID-19 pandemic descended upon us and the country shut down, the implications were as varied as they were far-reaching.
For two months, the country shut down and the government as part of mitigating measures footed electricity and water bills, with salaries paid regardless of the stay-home directive for public sector labour force.
The fallouts for the foregone were biting, resulting in the fiscal challenges for the government.
While the then opposition appreciated the reality of the times and acknowledging same when they went on foreign trips, same was not the case at home. They preferred to rather throw dust into the eyes of the citizenry at home because that inured to their electoral interest.
It is easy under such circumstances to pretend not to know that the situation was occasioned by an international occurrence and to rather tell the vulnerable, and they are many, that Russia and Ukraine are too far from us and so it is outrageous to claim that the fallouts from the war in that part of the world can cast a negative effect on the local budget.
With the internet’s powerful retentive memory not impaired, Ghanaians have started fetching from its archives a clip of Sammy Gyamfi, then in opposition trenches, throwing punches at government for claiming that the Russian and Ukrainian war was impacting negatively on the local economy.
As we keep our fingers crossed and watching the political landscape, we have noticed some actors on the side of the two divides engage themselves already along the lines of the subject under review.
Although the NDC has not come out yet to state that the economy is being impacted by the ongoing hostilities, when they do in the likely event of significant oil price spike, they would be met squarely by their opponents who are waiting on the wings primed for the polemics.