80 NPP MPs go into Book of Records
I have checked from Ghana’s political history, called up historians and political scientists; none of them remembers any week in Ghana comparable to this week’s volcanic eruption within the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Of course, we remember the 1978 palace coup, led by the heavily moustachio’d General F. W. K. Akufo, the second in command, who shunted aside General I. K. Acheampong as Chairman of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) government. Also, there were counter-coup attempts from within Rawlings’ Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
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There may have been other instances, but in terms of shocks and near cataclysms in democratic dispensations in Ghana, none compares with 80 New NPP members of parliament (MPs), openly demanding the sack of the finance minister of their own party in government.
This country has seen economic hardships such as those in 1983, that produced the proverbial Rawlings Chain. The effect of the world’s “Great Recession” of 2008 rocked many a government and was felt in Ghana under J. A. Kufuor’s NPP.
Historians, economists and political scientists seem to be agreeing with the word in the streets that Ghana’s economic fundamentals have never been so low, reading the statistics that keep coming from international credit rating agencies and pollsters of international repute.
Though the African Development Bank (AfDB) projects that Ghana’s 2022 economic outlook remains positive, with gross domestic product (GDP) projected to grow by 5.3 per cent, it says that though the country is expected to return to its fiscal responsibility budget deficit threshold of five per cent of GDP in 2024, the public debt as at the end of 2019 posses escalation risks and the country remains at high risk of debt distress.
‘Man in street’
Though I am reading these figures from all manner of sources, my own judgement of Ghana’s economic performance remains that of the ordinary man in the street.
To this ‘man in the street’, the suffering today can be compared only to the 1983 crisis under Rawlings. The hardship that stares at us in the face today is evident in the size of kenkey and the price of fuel.
And what has caused this? I refer to AfDB’s conclusion of “debt distress” and wonder how this has been possible under a government that won power because it made all Ghanaians believe that it had the antidote to borrowing.
Again, this is a government that came to power in 2016, promising to take Ghana out of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. True, it did in 2017.
How we celebrated! People poured champagne over the government’s head like a Formula One race winner. Why? Because to us, going off an IMF programme was equivalent to an economic redemption.
Question: If going to IMF translates as economic mismanagement, and if being taken off an IMF programme is success, what is the verdict for taking the country back to IMF? When the President pats Ken Ofori Atta for giving us strong economic fundamentals in his first term, will the corollary, ipso facto, not be true also?
At any rate, what were the benefits of us being taken off the IMF programme? Was IMF so evil? So why are we going back to the evil?
President has promised that “things will get better”. I believe him, but what if an IMF bail-out doesn’t come through for us?
Complain
Alhaji Dr Bawumia was on TV this week complaining about Ghanaians’ excessive dependence on imports.
Governments do not complain; they think through blueprints and carry citizens along policies and programmes. In six years, what has been government’s concrete programme
on the ground to reduce the over-dependence?
In Nigeria, the government did not go about talking or complaining; it went ahead and banned the importation of 41 items which were considered non-essential. In 2019, the Nigerian government, out of self-preservation, shut its land borders with neighbours in West Africa to prevent importation of rice by land.
What has Ghana done?
Literally, large swathes of fertile land lie fallow. Millions of youth roam the streets hungry. Yet, as the Agricultural Workers Union pointed out only this week, our Agriculture Minister’s policies and programmes remain only on paper.
80
I didn’t see the Majority Leader, Kyei Mensah Bonsu, in the midst of the 80 MPs who demanded the sack of the finance minister. But if I recall his brilliant speech in July this year, demanding a drastic reduction in the size of government to 19 ministers, I can imagine where he stands. He is a Minister of State. Ministers don’t talk like that in public, unless they are compelled to.
Why did the 80 NPP MPs decide to go public? They heard their President say he does not feel threatened by some Ghanaians to vote out his party. The MPs’ action is only to tell the President that unlike him, who has served his two terms, they have other terms to think about on the ground to reduce the over-dependence?
In Nigeria, the government did not go about talking or complaining; it went ahead and banned the importation of 41 items which were considered non-essential.
In 2019, the Nigerian government, out of self-preservation, shut its land borders with neighbours in West Africa to prevent importation of rice by land.
Literally, large swathes of fertile land lie fallow. Millions of youth roam the streets hungry. Yet, as the Ghana Agricultural Workers Union(GAWU) pointed out only this week, our Agriculture Minister’s policies and programmes remain only on paper.
I didn’t see the Majority Leader, Kyei Mensah Bonsu, in the midst of the 80 MPs who demanded the sack of the finance minister. But if I recall his brilliant speech in July this year, demanding a drastic reduction in the size of government to 19 ministers, I can imagine where he stands. He is a Minister of State. Ministers don’t talk like that in public, unless they are compelled to.
Why did the 80 NPP MPs decide to go public? They heard their President say he does not feel threatened by some Ghanaians to vote out his party.
The MPs’ action is only to tell the President that unlike him, who has served his two terms, they have other terms to think about.
The writer is Executive Director, Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: [email protected]