Trust not Mahama: Evidently, he failed abysmally as a president!

Some of us have always held a firm and unadulterated conviction that governance is a serious business, and as such, it requires forward-thinking, serious, and committed candidates to bring about the needed progress.

Nevertheless, this has not always been the case in Ghana’s democratic dispensation. We have more often than not been relying on lousy economic managers whose main preoccupation is to amass wealth at the detriment of the poor and disadvantaged Ghanaians.

If we stroll down memory lane, three years after former President Kufuor’s NPP administration had worked tirelessly and discovered oil in commercial quantities, the NDC administration led by the late President Mills only had the easiest job of turning on the valve at an offshore platform in December 2010 to pump the first commercial oil.

Ghana rightly associated itself with the petroleum-exporting countries. And believe it or not, Ghana started to export crude oil, which boosted economic growth.

The economy grew favourably from around 8.4 percent to around 14 percent by 2011, and Ghana subsequently reached lower middle-income status.

Ghana’s GDP grew exponentially from GH28 billion to a staggering GH47 billion by 2011.

Ghana was then cited as the world's fastest-growing economy in 2010 (Economy Watch, 2010).

To his credit, the late President Mills continued to improve upon the excellent economic foundation laid by former President Kufuor and his NPP government.

President Mills mysteriously departed from life in July 2012. And, per Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, Vice President John Dramani Mahama was the next in line to take over the presidency.

Things regrettably started to fall apart. It went from bad to worse following President Mills' sudden and mysterious death.

Ghana’s total debt rocketed astronomically (from GH9.5 billion in 2009 to GH122.4 billion in December 2016). This resulted from the unbridled spending in the 2012 election and the numerous corruption scandals involving GYEEDA, SADA, SUBA, bus branding, and dubious judgment debt payments, amongst others.

Ghana’s economic growth rate was woefully reversed from 14% in 2011 to an incredible 3.6% by 2016. The GDP was shockingly reduced by GH10 billion (from GH47 billion in 2011 to GH37 billion in 2016).

The erstwhile Mahama administration incredibly reversed agricultural growth from 7.4 percent in 2012 to a disappointing 2.5 percent by December 2016.

Despite the absence of the pernicious Coronavirus or Ukraine/Russia impasse during the Mahama administration, Ghanaians became fed up with the extremely harsh conditions amid corruption allegations (Bus branding, Brazil World Cup, SADA, SUBA, GYEEDA, SSNIT, MASLOC, NCA, Ford Expedition Vehicle, amongst others).

Notwithstanding the incontrovertible evidence of wilful mismanagement, the NDC loyalists would want discerning Ghanaians to believe that the erstwhile NDC government provided exceptional governance.

Ghana’s economic growth regrettably slowed for the fourth consecutive year to an estimated 3.4% in 2015 from 4% in 2014 as energy rationing, high inflation, and ongoing fiscal consolidation weighed on economic activity (World Bank, 2016).

In addition, the high inflation rate remained elevated at 18.5% in February 2016 compared to 17.7% in February 2015, even after the Central Bank’s 500 bps policy rate hikes (the inflation stood at 15.8 percent as of October 2016).

Ex-President Mahama and his NDC apparatchiks slyly took refuge in their much-touted infrastructural projects after failing to initiate expedient policies to overturn the failed policies of agriculture, poverty reduction, and resource allocation in the areas of healthcare, education, finance, supply chain management, and security sector planning, amongst others.

As a matter of principle, some of us will keep questioning the judgment of those who have been proclaiming somewhat brashly that Ghana’s economy under former President Mahama (3.4% growth and 15.4% inflation) was better than the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia record before the insidious coronavirus (8.6% growth and 7.5% inflation).

Needless to say, before the deadly coronavirus, Bawumia dutifully assisted Akufo-Addo and raised Ghana’s economic growth from 3.4% to 8.6%.

It was Bawumia who admirably assisted Akufo-Addo and, within a short space of time, reversed the inflation from 15.4% to 7.5%.

Interestingly, in the first two years of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration, the agriculture sector recorded the highest growth rate of 8.4%.

Indeed, the agriculture sector expanded from a growth rate of 3.0 percent in 2016 to 8.4 percent in 2017 (GSS, 2018).

The Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration, before the unspeakable coronavirus, recorded the highest growth rate of 16.7% in the industry sector.

The industry sector, the fastest-growing sector with a GDP share of 25.5 percent, had its growth rate increase from -0.5 percent in 2016 to 16.7 percent in 2017 (GSS, 2018).

If Mahama is not taking Ghanaians for granted, how on earth would he consider returning to the presidency given the dreadful errors in judgment during his tenure in office?