Ask Ekua Kwansema

Economic achievement does not only center on putting up or repairing existing infrastructure in a country. It goes beyond that. Most of the time it’s a government’s ability to cut down on wastes, cut down on inflation, putting up good monetary and fiscal policies to service the national debt in addition to being able to revert from budget deficit to budget surplus.

We have for the past 8 years heard a lot about the “economic miracle” that happened under the watch of former President Kufour. I know within my heart that Kufour tried and did something to improve the living conditions of Ghanaians in addition to road and school projects undertaken by his government.

It was common for the Kufour administration to solidify its argument of being the best government ever to rule Ghana since independence, by quoting from various World Bank reports. I am not making this up. We Ghanaians heard Kufour’s government on countless of times quoting the World Bank as its main gauge of how well they were doing.

But a report released by the World Bank just last week, does not seems to add up to the claims by the past administration that they put the country’s financing state on a sound footing. I do not want NPP hacks to jump over me that I do not find anything good to write about the Kufour administration. Far from that. But if somebody or a government has repeatedly made some assertions, to project its image to Ghanaians, and these assertions has been debunked, it is naturally fair for Ghanaians to know nothing but the truth.

The World Bank Country Director in Ghana , Ishac Diwan, in that report stated categorically that the NPP government left Ghana ’s economy in a much worse state than they inherited from the NDC in 2000. Is anybody following this? The NPP which claims it did “wonders” by turning the country’s economy around through the “Ownership Society” is now being shot on the foot by the World Bank that their “economic miracle” is in fact nothing but a hoax.

This is not a story Ekua is making it up. It’s a report released by the World Bank which added that the county’s economy situation took a deep dive during the last two years of the Kufour’s administration, hence the terrible financial situation facing Ghana today.

If this report is anything to go by, then anybody with the country at heart can conclude that the NPP was not forthright with Ghanaians when they repeatedly claimed the economic achievement which was not true.

In fact if Ghana ’s economy was much better in 2000 than it is today, then the Mills’ administration and Ghanaians have to brace themselves for bumpy rides. For far too often Ghanaians have been taken for a ride by politicians who continue to lie under their teeth for political expediency. And now that the report is out the NPP people, trying to hide the serious embarrassment and political fallout, are accusing the World Bank as playing politics with it’s assessment.

Sometimes its’ good when there is change of government, otherwise this serious issue would have been swept under the carpet if the NPP had handed over to itself. I still can’t shake myself from the fact that for all the claims and figures and travels and talks about multiple investors coming to Ghana and the country going bankrupt (Via HIPC) and debt cancellation and infusion of capital by the World Bank and other countries, all these resulted in Kufour’s administration getting Grade D from the World Bank.

There is a saying that if your uneducated parents struggle to take to school, but you fail to educate your kids, then you are indeed a failure to society. The same thing applies here. When Kufour took over from the NDC there was a coinage of this term “Adeana Asei Koraa” meaning the economy at that time stinks, which emboldened Ghanaians to give Kufour enough time to fix the economy.

Now if after 8 solid years we are hearing that the economy that Kufour took over was much better than what he left Ghana , then what would the new coinage be? Over to you Ghanaians.

ekwansema@yahoo.com