Battle for fiscal space and other matters!
It has been three very eventful weeks since I last appeared here. We have since then had to digest five important speeches, four of them by President Akufo-Addo, and the fifth being the budget statement by Finance Minister Mr Ken Ofori-Atta.
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The President first delivered to Parliament his first State Of the Nation Address (SONA), followed the following week by the budget statement also in Parliament by the Finance Minister.
President Akufo-Addo spoke again a day prior to our independence holiday announcing the transformation of our old presidency, Christianborg Castle, Osu, into a presidential museum, then on the day itself, he gave us his views on the history of the independence struggle of our country, just a few hours after cutting the sod for the construction of a national cathedral for this country. Each of these important speeches have attracted the widest possible commentary. Here is mine.
My first observation from where I sit is that I am keenly aware that President Akufo-Addo is first and foremost our President, but he is also the leader of an active and vibrant political party, a party which has its own opinions about our history and its role in that history, and so I do not expect him to do public relations for other parties.
I also know he studied history under the late Professor Adu-Boahen at the University of Ghana, Legon, so he has the necessary academic background to deal with historical matters.
In addition, as a proud relation of several of our pre-independence politicians, and son of one who became President of the Second Republic, he is entitled to his own rendition of events from a personal perspective.
Therefore, being evenhanded in his assessment of the country he is now leading would have defeated the purpose of his electoral victory. It would also have made insignificant whatever his government will do in its tenure. His complaints serve to lower expectations of future performance and provide ready template for his own record, yet to be executed. Once these are accepted as the forcing-grounds of his views, I am not particularly surprised.
On his SONA in Parliament, I was astonished by the lavish praise he showered on Madam Charlotte Osei and her Electoral Commission for a good job well done last December when his party swept both the executive and legislative branches of government in the general election.
Would he have done the same were the results different, or victory wears special spectacles from the constant, litigious and tiresome posture of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) towards the EC and Dr Afari-Gyan and now Mrs Charlotte Osei from January 2009 to December 2016? For us as voters, what does this praise mean? Peace or the calm before the storm of drastic changes prefacing another rocky round of pointless recriminations and counter-recriminations?
Thirdly and lastly on the SONA by President Akufo-Addo, I must admit I get seriously confused by the economic panacea proffered by the NPP sometimes. What exactly is meant by the prior and curious term ‘’Guggisberg Economy”? If an agricultural commodity-exporting economy is bad, why seek to prosper by mechanising it?
And pray, where from this ridiculous unhistorical idea that modernisation of agriculture creates jobs for the jobless? It is the opposite which normally happens, the more modern and industrial the state of agriculture, the fewer people it employs. It is in manufacturing that jobs for the masses are created. I was not surprised, therefore, when we had no inkling of the changes sought in the structure of our economy in the budget statement of the Finance Minister, and I am sure it is because our economy is changing right before our eyes, moving from the status from which England, Australia, Canada, Argentina, the United States to name a few, and countless others moved away from into an industrialised economy, then into service economies, and now to technology-driven societies.
Our quarrel in this country is really about the pace and the sites of emphasis. From the historical perspective therefore, what marks the first budget of President Akufo-Addo is its lack of structural boldness, its nipping and tucking search for funds to execute electoral promises, and its little sops of regard to is constituent parts by a pork barrel abolition of insignificant taxes leaving major ones untouched, as our cedi maintains a comfortable lead over the all-important dollar, insolently oblivious of the presence of competent managers of our economy.
I believe this budget does not in any meaningful way, address the NPP view of our economic problems. Especially since the much-condemned IMF package is to be extended by a year. The latter proves the soundness of the economic policies of the Mahama administration. Analysts and the business community must wait for the real budget during the promised mid-year review by the minister. Then I expect the minister to say something about the status of national health insurance, whose problem, I assert, is not mismanagement, but the inadequacy of the statutory funds ring fenced for its financing.
The reason for this is the expanded unplanned-for base of the scheme, demonstrating its spectacular success. That, and the spectacular decision to cut statutory expenditures for education, local government, school feeding, and a host of others, will test the resolve and competence of this government as social interventions we have grown accustomed to are decapitated to fund other newfangled interventions.
Free SHS, despite the propaganda, has not arrived yet and is limping, and I actually believed the government would have sought funds by deboardinasation of our SHS as the detribalisation argument is now moot. I found the cited example of the budget of July 23, 1981 by the minister as doubly unfortunate, and somewhat revealing, to those of us not born or adults at the time. The truth of the matter was that the budget motion of President Limann delivered by the then Finance Minister, Professor Benneh, was defeated simply because the majority members were absent on that auspicious day. This, of course, gave a mighty fillip to merger talks between the minority parties who were seeking to join together as they did later in September 1981.
On hindsight, this proved to be one of the signs of internal dissension in the ruling party which ended with the coup of December 31, 1981, and ushered in the PNDC. Is this what Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is praising, that his budget should be defeated? It was also one of the reasons for the insertion into the 4th Republican Constitution of the provision to have half of the ministers to come from Parliament to ease the business of government.
On the welcome transformation of the Osu Castle into a presidential museum, I do remember clearly that that was what I discussed at length with President Mahama when I visited him in 2014 or thereabouts, and asked him about the future of the Castle now that he had moved into Flagstaff House. I was not surprised though, that President Akufo-Addo’s inauguration speech did not include the fact that the castle housed the first asylum for mad people in this country, temporarily, before the facility at Adabraka was established for the purpose in 1905. The concept of a national cathedral is a curious one.
Quite apart from my stated opposition to religion being invited to destroy our secular arrangements and peace, I would be interested to know how this church would be controlled and services conducted. The so-called national cathedrals in other countries belong to specific faiths who did not build them for such purposes but whose nearness to their legislatures or government offices compelled the churches to offer these buildings for state purposes as needed. Which rendition of the history if followed, would have made Ridge Church, which is interdenominational already, the natural home for such an idea?
I am yet to see any Protestant clergyman preach in a Catholic church.
On the independence speech of President Akufo-Addo, I find the opposition to his views unhistorical. To be fair to him, he concentrated on events of 70 years ago, not the 60 years we celebrated last Monday. As a straightforward historical account, my only disagreement with him was the muted role of George Paa Grant. It is simply cruel to describe Dr Danquah who died in such appalling conditions as a CIA agent. That will immediately call into question our acceptance of Guantanamo detainees into our country as part of the resolution of an international quarrel we are not party to.