Bawumia does not understand 'practical' economy - Joseph Yamin

Former Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister, Joseph Yamin says the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) are being intellectually dishonest for claiming to have fixed inflation by reducing it to 10.5 per cent as compared to 15.5 per cent in 2016.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, the former Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports posited that the Vice President attempting to showcase the efforts of his government in fixing the economy only spoke the half-truth by comparing only the inflation of 2016 and the current inflation without taking into account the prices of goods attached to the compared inflations.

“He compared the inflationary figure of 2016 to the 2020 inflationary figure. In 2016, he said that the inflation was over 15 per cent and the current inflation is over 10 per cent, but what he failed to do was to also compare the prices of the inflationary figure of 10.5 to the prices of the inflationary figure of 15.5; when it got to that side, he vanished; he could not do the comparison. I am sure that Ghanaians will like to know the inflationary figure of 15.5 which was used to buy a bag of maize for Ghc45. At the time that inflation was 15.5 per cent, a bag of maize was sold for Ghc45 [per 50kg] but with the inflationary figure of 10.5 per cent, the same 50kg of maize is sold for Ghc110 and Ghanaians don’t even get some to buy,” he argued.

“With the inflationary figure of 15.5 per cent in 2016, a gallon of petrol was sold with for Ghc15 but with the inflationary figure of 10.5 per cent a gallon of petrol is sold for Ghc27. Dr Mahamudu Bawumia should come and do the same comparison between the inflationary figure of 15.5 per cent of prices of goods in our market and the current inflationary figure of 10.5 per cent of prices of goods in the market before we can understand what he is saying about fixing the economy,” he dared.

According to him, the response of Vice President Dr Bawumia in his attempt to address the clarion call of many Ghanaians for the NPP government to fix the economy has rather caused the country to become a laughing stock in the world, making people doubt his knowledge in economics.

“But you don’t just come and write something and lecture on it and then you go. All that he said did not make any impact but rather Ghana has become a laughing stock. Interestingly, whenever our Vice President speaks, people laugh and ask where he attained his doctorate degree in Economics,” he noted.

He slammed that our market women and the business people have a better understanding of the inflation regardless of their economic background in school as they are working with the prices of goods which contradict the inflation figure quoted by the government.

“When it comes to economics, we have the academic side and the street economics. What he said is the one in books and he should have done the market or the street economics; that is the proper comparison. So, in the books, the inflationary figure was 15.5 in 2016 but how to calculate it in terms of the prices of goods, he could not tell us,” he chided.

“To call someone an Economist like Mahamudu Bawumia, he should be able to understand the practical economy and the theoretical economy before he can address Ghanaians on the economy of the country, but it looks like the Vice President understands theoretical economy but with the practical one, he does not understand,” he asserted.

“As we speak, the equation made by Dr Bawumia does not correlate with the reality in the country. Under Nana Akufo-Addo government, we are solving simultaneous equation but we are arriving at different answers,” he mocked.