Konadu Relaunches Party

After woefully failing to get her name on the 2012 presidential ballot, forcing her party to go on hibernation, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, wife of former President Jerry John Rawlings is in the news again, this time; on a nationwide rebranding mission to re-launch the almost moribund National Democratic Party.

Bent on equaling her husband’s record as Head of State, the disqualified NDP presidential candidate is leaving no stone unturned as she is said to have vowed this time around to have her name fixed on the 2016 presidential ballot to among other things, ‘teach’ the ruling National Democratic Congress a bitter lesson.

To achieve this diabolic and burning political desire, Mrs Rawlings, who decamp from the NDC after losing the party’s 2012 flag bearer slot to the late Prof Mills at the 2011 Sunyani congress, is said to have taken advantage of the growing attrition and despondency among supporters of the ruling party and has begun touring the regions to attract them to her side.

In order to position her party, which has become an operative machine doing the hatchet-job of the opposition New Patriotic Party, as the second home of disillusioned NDC members, the former first lady is said to have started campaigning for 2016.

As part of resuscitation her almost deserted party, Mrs Rawlings, according close sources, has begun refurbishing and equipping NDP offices across the country.

Reports are that some aggrieved members of the NDC in the regions, some of who were members of the defunct Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings (FONKAR) but had to ditch Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and her NDP ahead of the 2012 elections to support President Mahama’s campaign are regrouping to join the former first lady resurrect the defunct political group and the NDP.

A founding member of FONKAR who wants to remain anonymous disclosed to this paper that Mrs Rawlings has not back down on her presidential ambition and as part of plans to give it a further push, she has started injecting resources into making the NDP more attractive to members of the NDC and Ghanaians in general in order to make it a force to reckon with come 2016.

Late last year, the failed NDP presidential candidate was reported to have dispatched 50 motorbikes to FONKAR members up North to start preparing grounds for her “grand entry”.

“It’s true…, it’s true, madam brought us 50 motor bikes before the Christmas and we are happy, what has the NDC done for those of us who defied her to support John Mahama’s bid?” an enthused ex-FONKAR member early this year told The aL-hAJJ. In all of these underground moves by the former first lady whose real dream according to a close source, is not to contest the 2016 election and win but to slim the chances of the NDC, what has been agitating the minds of political pundits is the oscillating position of founder of the ruling party, Dr Jerry John Rawlings. While Mr Rawlings per his public utterances appeared to have a soft spot for the Mahama government as compared to administrations before him, his deafening silence and inability to halt his wife’s destructive agenda of dipping NDC votes in the 2016 elections is a source of worry to many party sympathizers and officials. Mr Rawlings has carved a niche for himself as harsh critic of administrations after his 19 year rule, accusing them all of been corrupt and losing the moral high ground. He did not spare his own protégée, the late Prof Mills under whose watch President Mahama served as vice-president. Ironically, while Mr Rawlings stood besides his wife to kick-out the Mills-Mahama-led administration, his 360 degree somersault becoming Mahama’s ‘guardian angel’ after the unfortunate death of the late president still remains a puzzle. This was against the backdrop of the fact that days leading to the 2012 elections, the NDC founder was skeptical about the chances of Mr Mahama winning against NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo. Indeed, Mr Rawlings was nonchalant over the competency of the then vice president’s ability to lead the country following the demise of the late president Mills when, in faraway Congo he told the BBC, “I don’t know…, maybe lest wait”. It is still unclear if the barrage of accusations against the Mills administration by the NDC founder was genuine as he has since been seen in functions with the late president’s number two after the 2012 elections and has consistently scolded members of the opposition for blaming President Mahama for ills of the country. Knowing Mr Rawlings for his complex political antics, political watchers are patiently waiting to see if he would support president Mahama in the 2016 elections at the expense of his wife.

Candor in Praising Bawumia’s Lecture DR BOTCHWEY EYES JM’s SEAT …As internal consultations begin

Ghanaians may have been spooked by the strange sense of political candor former Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, demonstrated when he showered praises on former deputy Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, at a recent lecture on the economy at the Central University College in Accra.

Despite their political and ideological differences, Prof Botchwey, nonetheless, did not only confirm and vindicate almost all what Dr. Bawumia said at a similar lecture at the same venue, which painted a bleak picture of the national economy, but also argued that the 2014 performance of the economy could be worse than in 2012 and 2013, considering the current state of affairs.

Since that lecture, Prof. Botchwey has been hailed by Ghanaians across the political divide, especially members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), given his locus as longest serving Finance Minister in Ghana and in the affairs of both the government and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

But what many do not know is that, Prof. Botchwey has his eyes firmly fixed on the presidency, and according to our sources he is hell bent on contesting the presidential primaries of the NDC with the sole aim of unseating President Mahama when nominations open next year.

The aL-hAJJ can today report that as opposition forces in the country scheme to forcefully topple President Mahama’s government even as he struggles to put the almost collapsed economy in shape, some top brass of the ruling party not satisfied with his leadership style have landed on the Rawlings’ Former Finance Minister to replace him as NDC Flag bearer for the 2016 elections.

The leading members of NDC hatching this plan are mainly the so-called PNDC ‘old guards’ who now think is it time for one of them to take over the mantle of leadership of the party and the nation.

Prof. Botchwey’s open-mindedness and the rare political frankness that he exhibited in his lecture at Central University College was to provide the needed fillip to his public image as a statesman before he could launch his discreet but furtive consultations within and outside the NDC for the presidency of the Republic of Ghana.

Insiders familiar with this latest arrangement in the governing party have disclosed that either the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority, Mr. Sylvester Mensah or Mr Alex Sebgefia, former deputy Chief of Staff, now deputy Minister of Defense designate, is being considered to partner Prof Botchwey as running mate.

Aside the duo’s respective loyalty to the party, competence and professional experience, their trump card is premised on their ethnic background. Mr Sylvester Mensah who is a Ga native from the Greater Accra region also traces his genealogy from the Volta region while Mr Sebgefia hails from the NDC’s ‘World Bank’.

This paper’s investigation has revealed that, consultations with “stakeholders” are almost completed with a sizeable number of them ceding to the idea to substitute the inscrutable President Mahama with Ghana’s longest serving finance minister with any of the above-mentioned two NDC stalwarts as running mate.

While some of the stakeholders have raised concern about the decision to float a new candidate to replace or contest president Mahama at the primaries, party insiders say majority are in favour.

This ‘minority group’, The aL-hAJJ’s reliable sources revealed are calling for “constructive engagement” with Flagstaff House to iron out outstanding differences. They would not want to engage in any acrimonious campaign akin to “FONKAR-GAME” to replace President John Mahama.

The majority, this paper has gathered are bent on going ahead with Prof. Botchwey, and have also vowed to float a candidate to contest the 2016 elections even if as an Independent candidate or on the ticket of a yet-to-be formed party.

Prof Kwesi Botchwey served as the country’s Finance and Economic Planning Minister from 1982 to 1995 when he resigned amid acrimonious relationship with former President Rawlings and some members of his government.

His about-turn to contest President Mahama observers say is not surprising given the political fragility of the President and his government at the moment brought about by the vulnerability of the economy.

As an astute politician, Prof. Botchwey has aptly calculated the national disaffection and anger that the current economic hardship has brought to the ordinary citizens of this country and the likelihood of the economy taking a center stage in the political campaign of the 2016 election. However, political observers believe that he cannot easily extricate himself from the failings of the economy having been a member of the much-respected Economic Advisory Council that has been advising both President Mills and President Mahama from 2009 to date.

Again, he is also the board chairman of the state-owned Ghana National Gas Company that has been tasked to produce the much needed gas infrastructure to support the nation’s energy-thirsty economy.

However, another observer argued that Prof Kwesi Botchwey and his handlers could easily find an alibi that he has been relegated to the fringes so far as economic management is concern.

He can say that neither the President nor the Ministry of Finance has heeded to his wise counsel in managing the economy and therefore there was little he could do to influence either economic policy direction or implementation. Should it happen, his contest against President Mahama would be his second attempt at the Presidency having contested and lost to the late President Mills in the 2002 presidential primaries of NDC with the support of some of the then party’s national executives including party chairman, Dr. Obed Asamoah.

His appointment as the board chairman of the Ghana National Gas Company by the late president was to cement a reconciliation process that was to bring back all the aggrieved members of the NDC back to the party’s fold.

This time around, pundits are gauging his political successes against the failures of President Mahama, especially in the area of the economy.

Prof Botchwey, last Tuesday evening mounted the podium to deliver a lecture as the third speaker in the Distinguished Speaker Series and said, he had no plans of offering counter arguments to the gloomy picture painted by the former NPP running mate Dr. Bawumia, adding, ‘I offer no rebuttals. I do agree with much of what he (Dr. Bawumia) said”.

In a similar lecture delivered in the Distinguished Speaker Series organized by the Central University College in Accra recently, the former deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana diagnosed the ailment afflicting the national economy citing rising inflation, depreciating currency, rising interest rates and high twin deficits for two years consecutively and a potential third year.

The astute economists and the man likely to partner Nana Akufo-Addo again or lead the NPP in the 2016 elections further argued that a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was inevitable if government’s management of the economy did not improve.

Prof Kwesi Botchwey on his part said, “Mahamudu is a young man whose professional credentials I particularly respect; I offer no rebuttals [to his lecture]. On the contrary, I do agree with much of what he said.”

According to Professor Botchwey a nation’s political economy shows the way political forces influence economic decisions. ” We must study and analyze the true state of things,” he noted.

Reflecting on what he called the critical challenges affecting the country’s political economy, the former Finance Minister said, “I see a nation reeling in widespread disaffection; a bit of despair…, a popular mood that is marked by some frustration and rising cynicism about any and all utterances, explanation and assurances by government and even by technocrats and public servants.”

He said the feeling out there supposed that “everybody in public office is somehow engaged in corruption and just money grabbing”.

Prof Botchwey pointed out that there is the need for the managers of the economy to pay attention to “policy credibility” for the restoration of macro-economic stability which has eluded the country since the first quarter of 2013.

“We have missed macro-economic targets in two consecutive years with budget outcomes deviating not marginally…, but rather significantly from published forecast,” he said.

He further explained that there has been some erosion of the country’s credibility among the public and development partners and that is worrying. Prof. Botchwey also said that the panic driven measures announced by the BoG as a counter to the fast- depreciating currency did not work because “the very structure of government expenditure had begun to impose certain rigidity on the national budget.”

In last year’s budget alone; the wage bill and interest cost on public debt accounted for about 82 percent of government spending, he added.

While Dr. Bawumia in his lecture likened Ghana's economy to a 'boneshaker' vehicle riding on a bumpy road, Prof Botchwey's perception of the country's political economy was also not complimentary.

"I see a spill-over of this mood onto our roads in a breakdown of discipline as motorists take the laws into their own hands and defy traffic lights and the police. Motorists who drive on multiple lanes and on the shoulders of often badly designed roads and in the process condemn law abiding motorists to long hours of waiting in endless queues as armies of hawkers desperate to make a living thrust a bewildering assortment of words in their faces and into their cars.

"I hear this frustration in the scathing curses of angry motorists, stuck in traffic as the odd dispatch rider doing his duty comes swooping by ordering or often screaming at motorists to make way for some functionary in a hurry.

"It is also seen in the desperate faces of destitute who scratch cars or rain insults if one fails to offer help."

Prof Kwesi Botchwey was quick in admitting that Ghana's political economy cannot only be looked through the perceptions he described above saying "we must study and analyze the true state of things."

Professor Botchwey called for well-structured policies that would ensure that loans taken either from the international markets or from the IMF are paid. While applauding the contributions of the civil society groups which have sprang up in recent years, the former Finance Minister said it is time to refocus on social mobilization not just on the wrongs of government.

He stated that Ghana is reeling from economic woes, because it has largely been living beyond its means. Making references to the recently held Senchi Economic Forum, he said Ghana’s wage bill, interest costs and public debts accounted for about 82 per cent of public expenditure, leaving 18 per cent of total government revenue for everything else, including vital expenditure.

Professor Botchwey said for 2014 alone, out of the projected revenue of GH¢ 24.062 billion, statutory spending on wage bill, pensions, external loan repayments and various funds, among others would take 101.2 per cent.

“So we are basically living beyond our means and must borrow from the domestic and external markets to finance the deficits including sovereign bond issues from the capital markets”.

The consequence of such borrowing, he said, had resulted in a huge public indebtedness, while the graduation of the country to lower middle income status had reduced the country’s access to long term financing from multilateral institutions like the World Bank.

“Nothing comes free; the markets will require you to adopt policies that make macroeconomic stability, with low deficit preferably funded without undue recourse to money printing. “In other words, these statutory and quasi-statutory funds alone take all government revenue, leaving a negative GH¢287 million for development expenditure and expenditure on goods and services,” he stated.

As part of measures to address the country’s economic challenges, he said energy pricing was very critical, “not only for the 2014 budget but also for the medium term.”

According to Prof. Botchwey, any fiscal medium-term measures proposed by the government should be credible and not be doubted.

“We noted at the economic forum discussions that the target set for the medium term in the proposed home-grown financial and economic policy framework may not be easily attainable especially as regards the target of reducing the wage bill from 57 per cent to 35 per cent by 2017,” he stressed. While commending civil society’s active role in exposing wrongdoing and lapses in governance, Prof. Botchwey asked that their focus be expanded to social mobilisation for development.

“It is time to stop the moaning and recriminations and get on with the business of national development,” he said.

This rare candor by the leading member of the ruling NDC has won him national and bi-partisan accolade with the talkative editor-in-chief of the pro-NPP New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako leading the praise choir.

Kweku Baako was quoted by the peacefmonline.com to have 'saluted' Prof Botchwey for giving credence to the economic ideas which was put forward by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

“I respect him, in fact, I salute him rather for the display of intellectual honesty in the way he acknowledged Bawumia’s preceding lecture…The NDC unfortunately look at Bawumia’s lecture through partisan lenses just because Bawumia was the running mate for the major opposition party. So, straightaway their reaction was predictable.

“But it was narrow. It was uneducated. I’m sorry to say so. It was non-intellectual,” he said.

On his part, a leading member of the NDC and the party’s Central Region Communications Director said, he might have misunderstood Bawumia when he launched scathing attacks on his gloomy prognosis of the economy.

“I am really humbled by the supplication of Kwesi Botchway. Perhaps we misunderstood Dr. Bawumia…if his statements have been reaffirmed by Kwesi Botchway, who am I? How can I bastardize people who are experts in this field (economy)?” questioned the Central Regional Communications Director of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Allotey Jacobs.

Analyzing Prof. Kwesi Botchwey’s lecture and juxtaposing it with that of Dr. Bawumia, the NDC Central Regional Communications Director said “perhaps we misunderstood him”. He admitted that there was some truths in the submission of Dr. Bawumia and added that there is the need to now come together as Ghanaians and fix the ailing economy.

Contributing to a panel discussion on ‘Kokrokoo’, Allotey Jacobs added that “from what he (Kwesi Botchwey) has said it means that all hands should be on deck; doing things to salvage the economy. If others will not do it, we will do it ourselves. It is true we are facing challenges but we are surviving as a nation and that should push us to move forward. I agree that there is the need to come together and put our shoulders to the wheel”. Prof Botchwey is a professor of practice in Development economic at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tuffs University with great practical knowledge in economics and rich experience in lecturing.

He holds an LLB degree from University of Ghana, LLM from Yale Law School and a doctorate from University of Michigan Law School. He taught at the University of Zambia, University of Dare Salam and University of Ghana.

Pratt Wants ‘Arab Spring’ -In Ghana

Less than a week after The aL-hAJJ revealed how some individuals are plotting a Ukraine and Arab Spring-like action to remove the Mahama-led government, Managing Editor of The Insight newspaper, Kwasi Pratt Jr has endorsed same action against the present administration.

As if to fully throw his weight behind recently revealed plots by some ‘evil minds’ to hold the country to ransom citing sleaze, hardship and inefficiency in the country’s power sector under the Mahama government, Mr Pratt did not mince words when he recommended ‘mass action’ as remedy to governments’ inability to find answers to the problems of the country including perennial flooding of the capital city.

Though he faulted both past and present governments for their inability to demolish structures on water ways, he said it was time the citizenry demanded their pound of fresh from the current managers in government because all administrations have failed. Audaciously calling for a crucifixion of the present government for all the ‘sins’ committed by past administrations, on Peace Fm’s Kokrokoo programme last week, the senior Journalist stated “If the state will not take action, citizens must begin to take action…. Somebody must take action.”

“Maybe one day, we should take citizen action. Maybe one day, we mobilize thousands of people to take over that flight ground and demolish the walls by force. Because if the government will not do, the police will not do and the national security will not do, let’s do it ourselves. Maybe it’s our time we took action ourselves and resolved this problem,” he said.

The Insight’s Managing Editor’s call was necessitated by last week’s heavy downpour which led to the loss of lives and properties worth millions of Ghana Cedis. Commenting of the incident, Mr Pratt, who is on record to have scolded the Ashanti regional chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party for calling for similar mass action, blamed the floods on illegal structures raised by people along "flood zones" and other demarcated areas along river banks, which he said prevent free flow of water.

Even though he voluntarily gave out the cause of the problem, his problem with governments was their inability to take all the hard decisions such as punishing and demolishing illegal structures on water ways.

With the Mahama-led administration following the footsteps of past government in not having the political will to clear the nuisance on the water ways, he recommended mass action to force it (government) take action or the citizens themselves take step to pull down the unauthorized structures. Last week, The aL-hAJJ revealed how some people plan to cash on the ills at the nation’s power sector, economic hardship and allegation of graft in government to replay the dreaded mass protest in Arab countries and Ukraine that led to the premature removal of sitting presidents.

Organizers of the immoral plot are said to have lined-up several activities to achieve the diabolic agenda and would in the coming days rolled into action mini-demonstrations in the NPP’s stronghold of Kumasi and Koforidua to draw support for a subsequent one million-man match in Accra to force president Mahama and vice president Amissah Arthur to resign from office.