Opinions of Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Columnist: Kwadwo Ye-Large
2022-03-16The silence of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on the economy is worrying
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia - Vice president of the Republic of Ghana
Many Ghanaians are calling on Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to break his silence on the economic situation of Ghana in recent times.
Dr.
Read full article.target='_blank' href='/GhanaHomePage/people/person.php?ID=1188'>Mahamudu Bawumia is a Ghanaian economist, a former deputy governor of bank of Ghana, the current vice president of the Republic of Ghana and the chairman of the economic management team. With his background as an economist and the current chairman of the economic management team, Ghanaians are of the view, that he should be explaining the economic situations as it stands now than his silence.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the then vice presidential candidate to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, during the erstwhile government held series of press conferences and public lectures to paint a picture of bad governance of the Mahama administration. In one of his lectures as published by one of the media houses, he said, the NDC did poorly as GDP only grew by 17% and per capital declined by 12%.
The loud mouth vice president continued to tell Ghanaians that the erstwhile administration introduced nuisance taxes for businesses and have also increased some existing taxes. He said the debt stock at the time was unsustainable at which time Ghana’s debt stock stood at GHC105 billion in May 2016. In fact Ghana’s debt stock raised to GHC122 billion at the end of December 2016. He even propounded a theory to mean that “if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you”. At the time this theory was propounded, the exchange rate stood at GHC4.17 to $1 in December 2016. These pictures painted, made Ghanaians believed in Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the economic messiah. We were made to have understand that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the NPP government will solve Ghana’s economic woes.
There came 2017 where Ghanaians voted massively and gave their mandate to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the NPP government. Today the same problem articulated by the economic messiah still stairs in our faces whilst most of these economic indicators are ballooning and sky rocketing.
In five years of governance by the NPP as Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia chairs the economic management team, Ghanaians are witnessing worse and severe hardship as compared to the 8 years governance of the Mills/Mahama regime. We are wondering how the remaining three years of this government will be like.
As at 15th March, 2022, the exchange rate for $1 is GHC8.00 approximately which is the weakest currency ever. (if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you), Ghana’s debt stock moved from GHC122 billion in 2016 to GHC344 billion in 2022.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who is known to have answers to the 170 questions set by himself for economic solutions, is in March 2022, adding a whopping GHC222 billion to our debt stock in just five years of governance. Our debt to GDP ratio had stood at 55.94% after 8years of governance by the erstwhile administration now shooted to 84.87% in just five years of the current administration.
Fuel prices currently had made lot of Ghanaians packed their cars and it is the highest in 33 African countries, causing a general rise in price of economic activities and operational cost. Most public officials are making us to even believe, without the E-Levy, the economy was going to crush. How all too soon a resilient economy crushing with E-Levy.
In spite of these, Ghanaians are really worried about how Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has kept quiet over the current economic situation. He’s gone on hibernation and we are extremely disturbed if this is the Mahamudu Bawumia we know. We are calling on him to provide the possible answers to the 170 questions he asked his predecessor. Economy, people say is not run from a text book.
