Accra Daily Mail Managing Editor, Alhaji Haruna Attah, has strongly condemned former Deputy Central Bank Governor, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, for using the maiden Aliu Mahama memorial lecture to attack the current government’s handling of the economy.

Haruna Attah, who said Dr. Bawumia was supposed to speak on “The need for a disciplined youth to advance development”, fumed that Dr. Bawumia displayed “crass partisanship” by his “unwarranted attack” against the government which, according to Haruna Attah, “took everyone by surprise”.

“…I walked out of the lecture because I didn’t want to be part of that kind of crass partisanship which the young man showed yesterday,” Haruna Attah, who confessed to voting for President John Mahama in the 2012 general elections, told XYZ Breakfast Show host Moro Awudu.

“Yesterday Dr. Bawumia exhibited the lowest of the lowest”, Haruna Attah thundered, adding that: “…You don’t use a memorial lecture that is meant to ennoble the memory of someone who stood for certain values, as a political platform to attack others”.

“…And the disrespect he showed to the President was what gored me because Dr. [Clement] Apaak was sitting there as the representative of the President of the Republic. He was there on the high table. Dr. Apaak read a message from the President of Ghana and if Dr. Bawumia does not respect the President of Ghana, does he expect us to respect him? So I walked out. I want the public to know I walked out on Dr. Bawumia because Politicians should not be encouraged to do the wrong things”, the Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the Aliu Mahama memorial Lecture said.

He said: “Look I’m not happy at all so I don’t want my name to be associated with what that young man did and like my statement said, I also want to make it public on your programme, my apology to the President and his Government because he did nothing to deserve what that young man did”.

At the Wednesday night lecture on the theme: “Discipline in economic management: the key to sustainable growth and prosperity”, the twice-defeated Vice Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), said even though the NDC Government is the first to have oil revenue at its disposal in Ghana’s history, it has failed to properly manage the economy.

Dr. Bawumia said the NDC Government, since 2009 till date, has borrowed over US$20 billion but has not used that money for anything transformational.

He said the NDC’s “Akomfem Socialism” - taking from the majority poor and giving to the minority rich through corrupt means - has made the ordinary Ghanaian worse off.

According to him, “at the end of 2012, Ghana’s budget deficit was a gargantuan GH¢8.7 billion, amounting to 12.0% of GDP using the rebased GDP numbers. This is the highest recorded budget deficit in Ghana’s history. The GH¢8.7 billion deficit would have been able to finance seven years of free secondary school education”.