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MONTECRISTO
That Ghana’s economy grew enough to see it exit an IMF Programme is a fact. That it subsequently improved on its economic performance attainment is equally a fact.
That COVID-19 eroded basic gains and brought the economy to its knees is similarly a fact as much as it, among several dozens of global economies, grew positive is a fact.
Did the NPP struggle to redeem itself after COVID-19? If ‘Yes’, the verdict of the streets didn’t show it. If No, what measures were put in place for speedy redemption? Did government carry the people and the people’s representatives along? No. Was the redemption programme sustained? The larger electorate doesn’t think so.
More importantly, did government show enough commitment to sustain the goodwill of the people who voted them into political power?
Fighting corruption
Corruption fight should be any serious government and political party’s conversation. Otherwise, that African government or political party need not be in power at all or aspire to rule over people or, for that matter, Ghana.
Did the government, in the opinion of the people, do enough to show that waste was substantially being avoided or that leakages were plugged and rumours of corruption decisively dealt with?
Annual Audit Reports remained the same, old Audit Reports about misappropriation of public funds, abuse of public office, plain ole thievery perpetrated culturally, without government doing enough to arrest and prosecute its own.
What is worse is that the Attorney-General, it is widely held, didn’t show serious commitment in promptly discharging serious cases, with a couple of them extending into eight years, after which it would wash its hands off the case, mouthing what citizens see between the two political parties as legal mumbo-jumbo.
Galamsey
Galamsey was hurting the economy. That was a fact. Ordinary citizens, immigrants, Chinese and local goons as well as party chieftains complicit in galamsey cannot help a party win critical elections. It is an encouragement to monsters to stage a coup d’état against government. If that didn’t hurt the economy, I don’t know what conspired to reduce prospects for growth and retaining power.
If that is serious governance that expected results, am sorry, we have lowered the standards. But that’s what the previous government gave us. Lots of talk about achievements, without basic conversations being addressed into constructive, tangible results.
This is aside of costs galamsey was inflicting on water production, timber resources and prospects, the invaluable ecology as well as conventional gold production from which governments benefit in regular and sustainable revenue.
Water being polluted from the White Volta into the Volta Lake at Akosombo and poisoning the space down into the streams and rivers deeper south – with costs and threats to domestic users and industrial concerns. Again, if this didn’t worry the previous administrations into positive action, am amazed.
In a nation where propaganda largely and, not just performance, reflect in sending messages downstream to the electorate that all was not well, did the NPP pick that message and run with it for purposes of intervention. If the NPP again didn’t appreciate this fact as a party who boasts about having the men, am certainly amazed.
CEOs of SOEs
State Enterprises and Chief Executives of State-owned Enterprises SOEs will be lingering conversations, unless President John Dramani Mahama decides to rock the boat. I say rocking the boat, because it is the politician and not the Public Services Commission that appoints strategic heads of most public institutions. Will the Constitution be changed to focus more on accomplishment, competition, qualification and experience and expertise?
So, when a President picks a fella as CEO of an SOE, he must know he is taking a political risk with a political fallout. But, he must also know that party interests matter, sometimes.
So far, by the gestures of the President, we may assume that, having been there, he has had enough experience he intends to utilise in effecting change – which is exemplary. We must applaud that.
Since Kwame Nkrumah, SOEs have caused the economy and Ghanaians jeopardy in job losses and financial losses. Unfortunately, up into the Fourth Republic, the scourge and saga of SOEs and their CEOs, adding more to our woes, rather than unburdening us as citizens.
SOEs Report and Presidential Audit
Reports earlier, before the exit of Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, that over 50 percent of the SOEs weren’t posting profit but wasting state resources, wasn’t followed by a redemption plan. Result? We still tolerated them and passed their inefficiency, costs and losses to us citizens. So, what’s the essence of governance, if they were tolerated, instead of being censured and the SOEs being salvaged, when they SOEs were distressed as most of them are, today in Ghana.
That is the Africa thing about us that we should no longer see remain African in us as Ghanaians.
As has been stated elsewhere, some of these include Bank for Housing and Construction then under Yaw Osafo Maafo, and GIHOC Distilleries, then under a female engineer Sherry Ayittey. It is intriguing that people pass comments on that against the background of banks making money as we have in the National Investment Bank and alcoholic beverages companies being naturally profit-sustainable.
Bottom line is that the President, still appearing and sounding committed to reverse the situation, has called for an audit into the operations of state enterprises. Will that bring in a new culture of business-mindedness for national profit? It should.
Were NPP National Executives in charge?
The 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections were not held under COVID-19 climate. Yet, NPP National Organizers weren’t visible. That is verdict on the streets. Indeed, even the media didn’t see them on the streets and in the market places and lorry parks, including Kejetia, Makola, Agbogbloshie and Mantse Agbonaa in Odododiodioo, explaining issues or bringing hope.
All National Organizers were doing, like they did in 2020, was chase the presidential candidate anywhere he went, when it could have been better arranged to have the rallies going on, while the candidate moved programmed to several constituencies each campaign calendar.
Indeed and, without controversy, the 2024 campaign, just like the 2020 primaries and campaign, didn’t see National Organisers organising anything national to bring the presidential candidates to the crowd, streets and people.
The ‘us’ and ‘them’ intrigue in picking MP aspirants was supporting presidential candidate was alive, manifesting division and skirt and blouse tendencies.
Minimising the clatter, for now
Little wonder, after the defeat, the party leadership, together with the National Council of Elders, fearing open competition from more serious candidates, decided to issue a statement, urging restraint and anything that smacks of a race to torpedo the non-performing leadership, ahead of regular timetable in 2026 into 2028.
That notwithstanding, the signs are that the captain and crew will be marooned on a wilderness at the next national congress. They supervised hopelessness and helplessness as well as incompetency and disgrace.
The sin, however, with the NPP is that it allows too many empty barrels and Konkonsa apparatchiki onto the space that well-meaning, accomplished fellas find it challenging coming to the front line.
If the thinking is that 2028 will present the NPP with opportunities based more on NDC non-performance than NPP promise and preparedness to take up governance responsibly, am afraid that sense of false hope may boomerang.
This is fact, not fiction. The NDC is currently ensconced. Unless some public disgrace throws them off balance, the NPP may have to wait till 2032, when Dan Botwe may be hitting 70 plus, with Bawumia the same, and Mahama retired in glory under the Constitution, and the lady from academia probably assuming the mantle of leadership.
