Debunking NPPs Lies About The Economy

On 14th September, 2007 the Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Mr. Peter Mac Manu, issued a press release titled-Ghana: Economic Achievements are Real- in what he said was a response to an earlier statement by the NDC; The release paddle half truth and twisted facts on what obtained in Ghana prior to January 2001 and the achievements of the Kufuor regime.

What Mr. Peter Mac Manu attempted to do was true to the style of the Danquah-Busia tradition of demonizing their predecessor regimes. They did it to Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP regime after the overthrow of the Nkrumah regime in 1966. We were told that before the 1966 coup, Ghana was on the brink of economic collapse; that Nkrumah had taken £50, 000 as pocket money on his trip to Hanoi and they even went to the extent of cartooning Nkrumah kneeling .before the body of a dead woman at the Flagstaff House on the instructions of Kankan Nyame of Guinea! They rubbished all the achievements of Nkrumah after they had failed to stop the United States and the British governments from providing financial support for the construction of the Akosombo dam.

Today, we wish to provide the full facts of Ghana's situation at the time the NDC left office in January 2001, and throw more light on the supposed achievements of the Kufuor regime.

ECONOMY “THE FACTS

In 1998, the world price of cocoa averaged about $1500. The NDC’s budget for 1999 was therefore based on the assumption that at least the price would remain at the same level throughout that year. Unfortunately, the price of cocoa began to decline on the world market from the middle of 1999. The decline continued with the price hitting $989 per tonne in July 2000. By December 2000, the price of cocoa had reached a 27-year low of $674 per tonne on the world market. In the case of gold, our other major export commodity, the world market price declined from an average of $387 per ounce in 1996 to $285 per ounce in 2000.

The decline in the world market prices of gold and cocoa occurred at a time when the world oil price was hitting what was considered then as world record highs after 1981 of US $35/barrel. Within the context of the external conditions, the economy was buffeted from every known economic angle in 1999 and 2000. Before the deterioration in external conditions, we had achieved a single digit rate of inflation of 9.8% in 1998 and the lending rates were around 20 percent, at a time when we were servicing all our external obligations as and when they became due.

Given the external conditions, there was a shortage of foreign exchange and demand for external resources continued to increase. In the circumstances, the NDC government had no option but to allow market forces to determine the value of the cedi. This was required by the need for a prudent management of the economy that would entail continuing to pay the cocoa farmers at least 70 per cent of the world market price as well as provide incentives for non -traditional exporters to earn enough to cover at least their local costs. This also applied to the firms that were in the gold mining industry.

According to COCOBOD sources as contained in a speech recently delivered by a deputy chief executive Mr. Fofie, in the past ten years, the highest cocoa Fob price paid to the cocoa farmer was 74 per cent in 1999/2000 under the NDC. Inspite of the record earnings from cocoa since 2001, Kufuors promise of C 9,500,000 per tonne from the next cocoa season does not equal our performance.

The decline in earnings from gold and cocoa was due to external forces. To say that external resources declined due to mismanagement and corruption is an abject lie. No institution of repute in the world’s financial system ever had cause to complain about our management of the economy.

THE ECONOMY UNDER KUFUOR

According to the President in his last state of Nation Address, external resources that have accrued to his government through HIPC and debt forgiveness are $8 billion. Since January 2001, the world market price of cocoa has been increasing. It went up by 50 per cent in February 2001, and then up again by 70 per cent by March 2002. Due to the crisis in Cote Ivoire , the price of cocoa on the world market reached $2400 in March 2003. After slight dips in 2005 and 2006, the world price hit $2017 in June this year. It now hovers around $1,900 per tonne.

Given the average yield of 550, 000 tonne per annum since 2001, due to the hi-tech method which was pioneered by Cashpro, a buying agency in 2000, and an average price of about $1800, the NPP government has earned an extra $3.85 billion from cocoa alone in the past seven years, using a price differentia of $1000 between the 1999/2000 and the 2006/2007 world market prices.

In the case of gold, the world market price dipped to $265.5 in December 2001, from the level of $285.18 per ounce in December 2000. The price has since recovered and has been hitting record levels. In 2002, the price of gold increased by 14.4 per cent and within 2002-2005 by 43.5 per cent. In December 2006, the price of gold reached $700 per ounce for the first time since 1981. It now hovers around $800, reaching a 26 year high of $830 on November 6th, 2007.From a price of about $300 in 2002, the average price of gold increased to $660 in 2006. The average for 2007 exceeds $700 per ounce.

Within the past seven years, Ghana average output of gold has remained at 2 million ounces. With an average price of about $500 since 2003, as against $250 during the days of the NDC, the Kufuor regime has earned as extra $250 for each ounce of gold. The extra earnings from gold that has accrued to the Kufuor regime from gold is around $3.5 billion.

Inspite of the record earnings from cocoa and gold, the Kufuor regime has within the past seven years, borrowed about $6 billion from external sources according to parliamentary records.

The total amount of extra resources that has accrued to the Kufuor regime since January 2001 is over $20 billion and there is practically nothing to show for it. Yet, the NPP Chairman had the audacity to talk about an external debt of $5.8 billion in 2001. The external debt of $5.8 billion represented the total external debt of the country accumulated then since independence in 1957.

At the appropriate time the NDC and the people of Ghana will demand a full account of how the over $20 billion has been used and for whose benefit.

PRICES AND THE COST OF LIVING

According to the NPP Chairman, the minimum wage under the NDC was a miserable $0.6 of a dollar. Today, the minimum wage has risen to $2.1 dollar” he claims. But what is the real value of the $2.1 dollars the least paid workers earns in year 2007 prices?

A survey of market prices will give an insight. In December 2000, the price of a bag of cement was 17,000 cedis. Today, the price is 90,000. In 2000, the price of a small- size tin of milk was 800 cedis; it is ¢6,500 now. In 2000, the price of a gallon of petrol was ¢6400; today it is over 44,000 cedis. At the time we were leaving office, the price of a 22.5kg LPG was 15, 000 cedis. Under Kufuor’s charge the price is now ¢106, 000. A loaf of bread that sold for 2,000 cedis in December 2000 now sells for ¢10, 000. A kilo of salmon which sold for 5, 000 cedis under the NDC now sells for ¢20,000. A crate of eggs (36) that sold for ¢12, 000 in December 2000 now sells for 42,000 cedis. Since Mr. Manu and his cohorts now measure their assets in the dollar let us state that by his own figures, LPG (22.5 kg) that sold for $2 in December 2000 now sells for $15..What type of macroeconomic stability churns out a six- fold increase in prices in just six years?

All over the country, the prices of basic commodities have gone up at least five fold on the average within the past six and half years. In reality, therefore, the so-called $2.1 dollars minimum wage is worth $0.4 of a dollar in 2000 constant prices. If Ghanaians are complaining about the high cost of living, it is because their living standards have declined by a third within only six years.

COCOA PRODUCER PRICE

If at world market price of around $750 in 2000, the NDC government paid the cocoa farmer 151, 755 cedis, per bag, then at the price of $1800 on the world market and with an exchange rate of 9,500 cedis against the dollar as against 6,800 cedis in 2000, the NPP government should have been paying the cocoa farmers at least 750,000 cedis per bag or ¢ 12,000,000 per tonne to meet the minimum standard we achieved during the 1999/2000 season. Under the NPP, the cocoa farmer has been short-changed. Yet, Mr. Mac Manu claims they have done much more for the cocoa farmer than any other government in the past. However in spite of rising world market prices of cocoa, the NPP government kept the price paid to farmers at ¢ 9,000,000 per tonne for 2003/4, 2004/5 and 2005/6. It was increased by a mere ¢100,000 to ¢ 9,150,000 in the 2006/7 season.

The cocoa farmers bonus scheme was introduced by the NDC government in 1996 when cocoa prices started recovering in 1994/95 after low prices in the early 1990. The 19 billion cedis we paid in 1995 is currently worth about 190 cedis billion which is almost a third of what the Kufuor regime has paid in six years with unprecedented high levels of cocoa in almost 30 years. Had we been fortunate to obtain the record high levels, we would form the records, have done twice the bonus payments the NPP Government has made thus far to cocoa farmers.

SALARY OF A NEWLY CERTIFIED TEACHER

According to the NPP Chairman, the monthly salary of a newly certified teacher has risen from $38 (264.458) cedis at the close of 2000 to1, 746, 776cedis at the present time’. His assertion that the monthly salary of a newly certified teacher at the close of 2000 was $38 is a pure lie- one of the many lies told about the economy and living standards that have become the stock “in trade of Mr. Manu, President Kufuor and other NPP government officials and their hanger ons.

The truth is that as at December 2000, the newly certified teacher earned a gross annual salary of 4,969, 377cedis, which worked up to a monthly salary of 414, 115 cedis, At Mr. Manu own figure of an exchange rate of 7,000cedis, to the dollar, the newly certified teacher earned about $60 and not $38! Of course at the time of leaving office we had worked out a new salary structure for the public service that was to take the certified teacher salary to about $80 from January 2001. This was the basic salary of a newly certified teacher inherited by the Kufuor regime.

In nominal terms, the teacher’s salary has gone up three fold. But that does not present the real picture of the living standards of newly certified teachers under the NDC and NPP governments.

Between 2001 and 2006, utility tariffs went up three fold. With the PURC granting the utility companies a 35 percent increase in tariffs, the price increase has risen to four fold. In cedi terms, once again, Mr. Mc Manu failed to concede that the single room for which the teacher paid a monthly rent of 15,000cedis in December, 2000 now goes for 200, 000cedis while the rent for a chamber and hall has also increased from 30,000cedis per month to 300,000cedis under Kufuor watch. Even using the low five fold increase in general price levels as the sole indicator, the 1,746, 796 cedis is worth just 350,000 in December 2000 prices.

The difference is not marginal. In December 2000, the difference of 64,115 cedis could buy 10 gallons of petrol; today it buys less than 1.5gallons of petrol; it could pay the rent for a chamber and hall for 2 months, now it is good enough for the rent for less than one week for the same accommodation.

It appears Mr. Mc Manu does not fully comprehend how workers are suffering under the NPP government.

BASIC EDUCATION, CAPITATION GRANT AND FREE BUS RIDE

According to Mr. Mac Manu, between 2005 and 2006, enrolment in basic schools increased by 16 per cent due to the introduction of the capitation grant and other policies by the NPP. He forgot to mention the other policies because they do not exist.

The introduction of the capitation grant is an infringement of the constitution. The 1992 constitution calls for the introduction of a free, compulsory, basic education by 2005. To pay 30,000 cedis per pupil, while parents pay for exercise books, some texts books and uniform does not constitute free education. As far as the NDC is concerned, free education means the provision of free exercise books, textbooks, uniform, food and any other material a child would need for purposes of offering each Ghanaian of school-age the opportunity to attend school.

While the NPP shouts about 30,000 cedis as capitation grant, pupils are being asked to buy 5 to 10 note one exercise books at 30,000 cedis each, textbooks and drawing aids. The exercise books alone cost over150, 000 cedis. As for free transport the least said about it the better. How many of the metro-mass buses are road worthy and are plying the roads in Accra ? The main garage of the bus company at Kaneshie in Accra is a museum of national resources wasted on the purchase of depilated buses.

EDUCATION THE NDC RECORD

In 1990/91, there were 1.8 million children in 9, 300 primary schools, 609,000 pupils in 5, 200 junior secondary schools and 200, 000 students in about 250 secondary schools. At the time we were leaving office in 2000, the NDC left 12,130 primary schools, 5400 junior secondary schools and over 450 secondary schools. We added two hundred secondary schools to what we inherited from the PNDC. Within seven years, the NPP government has not added even fifty secondary schools to what we handed over to them.

In 2001, the NPP government promised to rehabilitate 25 secondary schools. Three years later in 2004, the number was increased by 20 to 45. To-date, the NPP government under Kufuor’s watch is yet to complete the modernization exercise.

At the secondary level, at the time we were leaving office, the approved boarding fee for a term was 187, 000 cedis. Under the NPP, the figure has increased to ¢676,700 per term aside the numerous hidden charges paid by parents averaging over ¢500,000 across board. In December 2000, the University of Ghana primary school charged 150, 000 cedis for ‘external pupils’; today it is 900,000 cedis.

At the tertiary level, the NDC added three new public universities; UDS, UCEW, the University of Mines and Technology at Tarkwa and a medical school to what we came to meet, apart from providing the regional capitals without a polytechnic with a polytechnic. Wa, Bolgatanga, Koforidua did not have a polytechnic before the NDC government was installed in 1993 but they each had it before we left office.

In September 2000, the academic and residential user fees paid by first year students at the University College of Mines, Tarkwa were 700, 000 cedis. Today, in Kufuor’s Ghana , first year students at the same University are paying 4,820,000 cedis for the same facilities. The fees paid by students of the University of Mines and Technology reflect what is payable by first year science students in all the public universities.

At the Accra City Campus of the University of Ghana , the fees are 8,000,000 cedis, for level 100, and 9, 760, 000 and 7, 780, 000cedis for level 200 Administration and Humanities respectively. For level 300 the figures are 9,760, 000 cedis and 7,560, 000 cedis for Administration and Humanities respectively. In Kufuor’s Ghana , tertiary education is a privilege.

All these fees are being charged at a time when the NPP government raked in over 1.5 trillion cedis in 2006 alone from the GETFund which was established by the NDC Government. Instead of using the GETFund resources to provide classrooms and other teaching materials for children in deprived communities, the NPP is using the GETFund to purchase and distribute buses painted in NPP colours. In an instance money from the GETFund was used to build a bungalow for a resource-rich regional institution like the West Africa Examination Council.

The NDC believes that the GETFund, without which our education system would have collapsed, provides an opportunity to guarantee each Ghanaian child a classroom with a roof and windows, and all the benefits that occur from the full implementation of a free, compulsory, universal education scheme.

As to parents paying tuition fees in public institutions, it seems the NPP Chairman did not know what he was talking about. Tuition in all public basic, secondary and tertiary institutions has been free since the Nkrumah era. Time did not allow Dr. Busia the opportunity to introduce the payment by pupils and students tuition fees he had planned for our education system. So far, tuition fees are paid in any private and public schools which are not covered by the capitation grant and private secondary and tertiary institutions.

It might interest Mr. Mac Manu to know that at 3rd grade kindergarten institutions in the city of Accra parents are paying 400,000cedis per term for their toddlers’ aside uniform, reading and other learning materials. Be that as it may, if Parents will rush their children to school simply because government is giving them ¢2500/month then the poverty level is very crippling and bad.

NHIS AND HEALTH

We have always insisted that based on our pilot schemes, we would have introduced a comprehensive National Health Insurance Scheme after the 2000 elections. What the NPP has introduced is NOT a national health insurance scheme; it is a labyrinth of one hundred and thirty eight district insurance schemes which does not afford the registered beneficiary in one district the opportunity to access health care in another district. The lapse is against the background of the fact that every Ghanaian pays 2.5 percent National Health Insurance Levy to keep the system running.

Under Kufuor’s watch, the health care system is deteriorating. Yaws, chicken- pox, guinea worm and buruli ulcer which we brought under control have re- emerged as major public health problems. According to Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa, the immediate past and first Director General of the Ghana Health Service, (Graphic, Sat. 16th June, 2007 ) life expectancy has reduced in Ghana since 2000.

According to Professor Akosa, life expectancy which was 54 years in 1985-90 and increased to 57.24 by year 2000 is now 50 years. He further stated that infant mortality rates have shot up in the three Northern Regions. According to the 2005 budget statement, infant mortality and morbidity and maternal mortality rates have increased in almost all the regions.

In eight years, we built three regional hospitals at Ho, Sunyani and Cape Coast . In seven years the Kufuor regime is yet to rehabilitate the Tamale Regional hospital which we had earmarked for rehabilitation in 2001.

RE-DENOMINATION OF THE CEDI

Mr. Mac Manu claims that the economy has been so stable that we are able to re-denominate. What he did not add was that the entire scheme is a big hoax. What matters with a currency is its purchasing power and not number of zeros that come after it. Indeed, Japan , has the second largest economy in the world yet its currency changes for more than 100yen to the dollar and Italy , until the introduction of the Euro exchanged the lira for thousands to the United State dollar. What matters is the ability of governments to provide their people with their basic human needs- something to which the NDC and its presidential candidate are committed.

In any case, is the re-denomination worth the need for spending a whopping $66 million to introduce the new coins and notes, when many Ghanaians cannot afford three square meals a day? The re-denomination exercise apart from its being a back door devaluation of the cedi was purposely meant to provide some NPP government officials and their friends in business the opportunity to make money at the expense of the people.

At the appropriate time we shall demand the full disclosure of the cost of the re-denomination from the Governor of the Bank of Ghana who has refused to disclose the cost even to Parliament .In two years time, we shall have to abandon the Ghana Cedi for the West African Eco at the cost of another tranche of $66 million.

Interestingly, the Kufuor regime has approved the establishment of the head quarters of the West African Central Bank in Ghana . $7 million has been approved for the construction of a $7 million head quarters in Accra in the 2007 supplementary budget.

AGRIC SECTOR

(a)Outboard motors

According to Mr. Mac Manu, a total of 338 out board motors have been given to fish farmers under a special credit scheme’ since the NPP came to power.

It might interest Mr. Mac Manu, the NPP Chairman to know that in 1999/2000 under a second credit line from the African Development Bank, the NDC government; through the Agricultural Development Bank, ordered 5,250 outboard motors with accompanying nets, twines, repel and spare parts for our fishermen. This amounted to 75 per cent of the needs of the 7000 canoes in the country.

Through the scheme, we created additional 42, 000 jobs in the fishing industry. The availability of the inputs led to an increase in the annual yield of the industry by 93,000 tonnes. We shall repeat this policy under our Agric programme in 2009 and beyond. Meanwhile, the price of a gallon of pre-mix fuel which was 5,000cedis in 2000 has increased six-fold to 30,000 cedis, while the price of an outboard motor -Yamaha [40HP] has increased from 5.7 million cedis in 2000 to a current figure of 34 million cedis.

(b) Fish processors and distributors

According to the NPP Chairman, 3000 fish processors and distributors have been supported through micro-credit since the Kufuor regime assumed office. We did much more than that. We did not only introduce the Chorkor Smoker, that improved on the efficiency in the industry but we also introduced micro-credits for more many thousand fish processors and distributors nationwide under various microfinance schemes.

Long before the Ministry of Finance introduced micro-financing as a poverty reduction strategy, in 1998/99 the Agricultural Development Bank had carried out pilot schemes on micro-credit in the Central and Western Regions. In two fishing communities in the Mfantsiman West constituency alone, about 100 fish processors were supported with the equivalent of about $600 each in 1994/95. The scheme was further replicated in other districts and regions.

Micro-financing is no big deal. We pioneered it in Ghana and we intend to deepen it and make it more effective “not as a payout to party officials –but as a means of increasing output and earnings in both the farm and non-farm, fishing and non-fishing sectors of our small towns and villages, while in the urban areas it will be targeted at small scale enterprises in both the formal and informal sectors.

(c) Cotton, rice and poultry industries

For obvious reasons, the NPP Chairman failed to mention his party achievements in the strategic agricultural industries cotton, rice and poultry industries. The reason is obvious: under President Kufuor charge the three industries which employed hundreds of thousand of farmers have collapsed and so has the textile industry where the labour size has declined by around 90 per cent from 30,000 to 3, 000 workers within the past seven years.

Under our Agricultural Development Programme which was implemented between 1995 and 1998, the productivity of farmers in the cotton industry was increased from 822 kg/ha in 1995 to 924 kg /ha in 1998/99. An additional 36, 000 hectares of land was cultivated by 75, 000 families in four otherwise deprived regions-Upper West and East, Northern and Brong Ahafo regions. The intervention resulted in an increased national output of 29.437 tonnes of seed cotton, 12, 939 tonnes of lint cotton, and 15, 505 tonnes of cotton- seed in 1998/99.

For the poultry sector, we imported 11, 737 tonnes of yellow maize, 2, 318 tonnes of soybeans, 655 tonnes of fishmeal, 20, 160 hatching eggs, 17, 000 day old jobs, 20 tonnes of lysine and other feed ingredients. These imports supported the production of 314,000 broilers and 667, 000 layers which culminated in the production of 705 tonnes of chicken and 155 million eggs annually. More than 20,000 jobs were created through the intervention, apart from other indirect jobs created in the maize production sub-sector. We supported and created the enabling environment for Darko farms, Afariwaa farms, Q farms, Mfum farms and others. These have all collapsed under the NPP.

The NDC government undertook the Northern Region Lowland Rice Project in 1996-2000. The project covered rice production on a total of 1,000 hectares by small scale farmers in three valleys –Kulda-Varong (Damango District) and Awry (Woriwori) and Sillium valleybs both in Tamale District. The project was aimed at providing support for hundreds of families and to be the precursor to large scale rice production in the Northern Region to be linked to the installation of rice mills for the local production of world-grade rice.

The Northern small scale rice project and the Aveyime rice project have both been abandoned by the NPP government. JOB CREATION

The NPP chairman claims that 120,000 jobs have been created under the National Youth Employment Programme. Be that as it may, it is a fraction of the one million people who registered as being unemployed during Kufuor’s nation-wide registration of unemployed people in 2003. What has happened to the others? On a daily basis the number of young people who sell dog chains and tooth pick in Accra and the regional capitals are increasing.

The unfortunate thing about the NYEP is that the jobs are not sustainable. How many of the young men and women would want o continue to be traffic wardens for the next four years and beyond? How many of the young men and women would wish to continue sitting at dispensaries under the guise of NYEP for the next five years? How many of these young people would like to continue clearing our streets in the next five years?

As we noted above, within four years, we created 42,000 in the fishing industry, 20,000 jobs in the poultry industry and more than 100, 000 jobs in the cotton and rice industries and these were sustainable jobs in the agricultural sector alone. From SSNIT records, we created 180,000jobs between 1996 and 2000. In seven years Kufuor has done just about 30,000 in the midst of plenty, so-called “macro-economic stability and four months worth of external reserves.” Our young and frustrated unemployed men and women need jobs, real sustainable jobs not cold statistics that have ceased to give hope to any section of our compatriots other than NPP propagandists and those who provide them with their means of livelihoods.

We intend to do much better when we roll out our job –creation plan under the next NDC government.

ENERGY CRISIS

Nothing exemplifies the ineptitude f the Kufuor regime than its handling of the energy crisis. In 2001all that the NPP needed to do was to raise the capacity of Aboadze thermal plant from 550 MW to 660MW and that would have cost just about $120 million for the construction of the steam turbines after which the extra energy of 110MW would have been generated free of charge! And then there was the Osagyefo barge. The installation of the barge and the addition of a steam turbine which would have cost about $280 million would have generated an additional 240 MW of energy. With the investment of about $400 million, Ghana could have produced an additional 350 MW of power. This would have cost ¢10 – ¢15 per kw/h to produce. The 350 MW was more than the 300MW deficit that caused the collapse of hundreds of small and medium scale industries and threw thousands into the streets as they lost their source of livelihoods.

Instead of doing what was obvious, Kufuor decided to buy ‘toy machines’ for which we spend about $150 million on diesel fuel per quarter. Within one year, we shall spend $600 million on fuel alone for the ‘toys’, to say less about the cost of the ‘toy machines’. These toys generate power at the cost of between ¢30 - ¢35 per kw/h

The decision to allow VALCO to start operations for its own sake was another disaster. The Valco operations accelerated the rate of decline of the water in the Volta reservoir and exacerbated the crisis. In addition the NPP Government paid 320billion cedis to Valco to subsidize its operations. There is currently an outstanding 175 billion cedis to be paid as subsidy to VRA. Within the crisis period, the NPP agreed to pay about 500 billion cedis to Valco, only for the company to close down at the peak of the crisis.

If the NPP government had implemented the VRA and Energy Commission’s planting programme of building a100 MW thermal plant every tear from 2003 – 2008, the crisis we went through from August 2006 to September 2007 would not have occurred; Two opportunities for averting the crisis were overlooked by the Kufuor regime.

One day, somebody may have to answer the charge of causing financial loss, wilfully, of course, to the state.

NOTHERN FLOODS

The floods in the Northern Regions could probably not have been averted but its impact could have been minimised, if the NPP government had learnt from history.

The history is there for any observer, the type of person the NPP claims to have in abundance. In 1967, the Volta reservoir hit its lowest level after construction after a drought. In 1968, the country experienced its most serious nation-wide floods in post-independence times. The drought of 1984 /85 were followed by torrential rains the following year. The cycle continued into the 90s. After the drought of 1997/98 that caused the energy crisis of 1998, the Northern regions experienced floods in 1999.

It was obvious from the metrological history that the drought of 2005/2006 that caused the energy crisis in 2006 would be followed by torrential rains in 2007. Yet, Kufuor and his men experienced, as they claim to be, were caught pants down. And in the midst of the crisis in the Northern Region, President Kufuor left Ghana , supposedly for Canada . It has however been revealed lately that he never got to Canada . Every president who cares about his people cuts short a foreign trip no matter how important it is if an emergency situation occurs at home. The President of Mexico abandoned a summit with the Canadian Prime Minister and US President Bush when a hurricane hit his country less than three months ago.

In the case of our President, he could not care a hoot. He left the country when the crisis was at its most disastrous level.

CORRUPTION

Reserves

The NPP government officials and functionaries always sing about reserves of $2 billion. As we have observed earlier, with the resources that have accrued to the government of NPP, we could definitely have done better. In any case, what is the use of resources when the living standards of the people are declining by the month? Any parent who keeps his children hungry and does not pay their school fees because he has to keep funds for his burial is not just irresponsible but also blatantly inhuman.

When we realised in 1999/2000 that we could not pass on the full cost of petroleum products to Ghanaians as that would have worsened the people’s living standards, we subsidized them and we have no apologies to make for that policy. Of what use are reserves when a fresh coconut that sold for 500 cedes in 2000 now sells for 3000cedis, and a bucket of water that sold for 100cedis in December 2000 now sells for 1000cedis in certain parts of the country?

When a currency is linked to a weak international currency, it is all too easy to make lousy claims of reserves in that weak currency. In December 2000, 82 US cents exchanged for one Euro. Today, $1.42 exchange for the Euro. The US dollar has depreciated by over 70 percent against the Euro, yet the NPP claims that the US dollar of today and what it can buy in the Euro zone is the same as it was in December 2000. Instead of talking about the stability of the cedi against the Euro, in which most of our imports are denominated, the Government continues to make noise on the basis of a weak dollar.

For all the noise about stability of the cedi, we only wish to inform the NPP government that in December 2000, 5,800cedis exchanged for the Euro. Today, 13,500cedis exchange for one Euro. That is stability in the midst of over $20 billion that has accrued to the NPP government from various external sources since 2001.

A LESSON IN GOVERNANCE

All over the world, governments build on the achievements of their predecessor regimes It is only the Busia- Danquah group under various names that always claims that their predecessor governments left ‘only a mess’ Busia did it to Nkrumah and Kufuor is singing from the some hymnal. The difference lies in their targets- it was Nkumah and the CPP yesterday; today the targets are the NDC and former President Rawlings.

In the United Kingdom , not every politician or individual is a conservative or a labour party official or sympathiser. Yet every British acknowledges that without Mrs. Thatcher’s reforms of the 1980s, the United Kingdom would not have been as rich and powerful as it is today. Before Thatcher, the United Kingdom was fast becoming “the sick country of Europe ”.

In the United States , former President Clinton managed to turn the budget from deficit to surplus. Every American believes that if President Bush had not embarked on the disaster in Iraq , the American economy would have been in a much better shape than it is today. It is all too easy for the NPP to make all the claims they make today because they came to meet a solid foundation with all the most critical reforms having been made before them.

Some of the reforms that have made Ghana what it is today include the financial sector reforms without which the banking system would have collapsed by now. We embarked on massive restructuring of our infrastructural facilities such as the ports and harbours, the roads and the telecommunications networks. We also embarked on the revival of the imploded mining sector. Indeed it is all too easy to send a computer to a village when the difficult task of extending power to that community has already been done. Without our financial sector and foreign exchange reforms, there would have been no banks and no remittances for the NPP to talk about. And without our structural reforms there is no way Ghana could have benefited from ‘debt forgiveness’.

Indeed Ghana is at where it is, though it would have been better than it is now, because of what the PNDC started and was continued by the NDC.There is practically no aspect of national economic reconstruction that does not have its roots in our reform efforts.

Unfortunately the NPP has not only institutionalized corruption and rationalized it as being as old as Adam, it has messed up the best opportunity after Nkrumah to make Ghana the best that it could ever be economically, socially and in terms of national integration.

In Kufuor’s Ghana , drug addiction and smuggling have become features of Ghana ’s economic and social landscape. A Member of Parliament from Kufuor’s NPP is currently awaiting sentencing in the USA for smuggling heroine with a street value of $6 million.

INSECURITY

All over Ghana , there are general feelings of insecurity. The way-laying and robbery of traders on the high ways, previously unknown is becoming a daily occurrence on a national basis. Car-jacking at gun-point involving the use of sophisticated arms are also on the ascendancy.

Contract killings have emerged as a national security problem. From media reports, there are indications that under Kufuor’s watch, death squads have emerged and are stalking the length and breadth of the country without any hindrance.