President Mahama
Posted on: wwwadailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Saturday, January 11, 2014
John Dramani Mahama met scores of journalists at the
Flagstaff House, Accra last Tuesday as part of activities marking the 1st
Anniversary on his election as President.
He took the opportunity to answer questions from
journalists and to even make more promises.
In fact, for two hours or so President Mahama
flanked by his vice almost all his Ministers and other appointees as well as security chiefs, was on
his feet fielding questions, answers to each attracting a bonus promise.
The
format
Press conferences are usually organized for the purposes of distributing information to the
media and answering questions from reporters. Press conferences can also be
organized in response to addressing public relations issues and in this 1st
anniversary press conference, the President appeared to have targeted both.
By inviting the press to such
special events, the Presidency had a good opportunity to present news story/stories
in the most favorable light; critics claimed he missed the opportunity to do
that.
The idea of taking questions in
batches instead of answering each question as and when it came also became a
subject for debate. Some were of the view that once the questions were asked in
batches the President could easily skip some of them.
Should there have been follow-up
questions? These were issues also raised by some critics.
The
Debate
While some hailed the move as deepening freedom of
expression, the rule of law and good governance, others were of the view that
the frontiers of democracy would have expanded if the President had been more
forthright with some of the answers he gave.
Critics have been particularly incensed over the
Merchant Bank brouhaha and its sale to Fortiz which once again became a major
topic of discussion on broadcast and social media.
Corruption
Fight
The President reiterated his commitment to fighting
corruption and graft in the country saying that “When it comes to corruption, I
have no qualms in the fight” describing it as “mass murder”.
However, he could not tell the public any new
interventions - apart from what the government has been trumpeting all along -
he had put in place to stem the corruption which everybody share the view that
it has become widespread.
From GYEEDA to SADA, action on the Auditor-Generals
Report or Public Account Committee’s recommendations, everything the President
said was already in the public domain.
“We
have taken a bold step. I have asked the AG’s Department and EOCO to prepare
the dockets for prosecution. They kept updating me on a fortnightly basis and I
am sure you will see some action on GYEEDA. Even the AG has called the service
providers to repay those monies and has entered into agreements with them to refund
the monies over a period of time.
I have also received the report for SADA and some
instructions have gone out to retrieve some monies so the AG will be working on
that.”
To
his critics, these directives are nothing new and even the timeframe within
which his minister’s were supposed to act to retrieve some of the monies or
take certain actions had elapsed.
Promises
Galore
The President’s penchant for promises has been
highly discussed in the media and as usual, his critics and some analysts have
accused him of “always promising but failing to deliver.”
Even in the face of widespread economic hardships
and with economists forecasting a difficult year, the President was courageous
enough to promise better days in 2014.
For instance, in the government’s own budget
statement announced in November last year, Value Added Tax was increased by 2.5
percent (VAT is now 17.5 percent from 15
percent). Utilities (Electricity 9.73 and Water 6.80) have all gone up. This is negatively affecting
statistics in the employment sector since more companies are laying off
workers.
Inflation is over 13 percent. Budget deficit is over
11 percent of GDP. Newly recruited teachers and nurses wait over a year to be
paid. Major infrastructural projects such as important roads are left
uncompleted but the President says he has put in solid measures to ensure that
2014 will become better for Ghanaians.
“For 2014, I’m very positive. I’m
upbeat that it’s going to begin the transformation of our country. It’s going
to mark the opening of new doors of opportunities for us,” he said.
Phantom
Schools
It was evident that the NDC government did not
fulfill its promise of building 50 senior high schools yearly, at least 2013
was there for all to see.
Yet, the President had a way to explain his government’s
inability to fulfill that promise.
“We should have started 50 schools last year but
because of transparency and having to go through a thorough process to ensure
that the projects are executed properly we spent the whole of last year doing
that.”
The President made more promises: “This year, we are
going to start with the first 50 but we are also going to start with the second
50 and so we are going to start on two batches of 50 community day secondary
schools this year. We are on track to deliver this promise and I am committed
to ensuring that we increase access to secondary education for our children.”
Airports
“We
are going to upgrade Kumasi airport to international status. We are going to
rehabilitate Sunyani Airport. We are going to build aerodromes in Cape Coast,
in Ho, in Koforidua and in Bolga to enhance domestic aviation serving all our
regional capitals,” these were all not backed by tangible time-lines.
National
Theatre
Planning to build a second national theatre in
Kumasi with loan from Turkish Exim Bank was another promise he made adding that
drawings have been done and land provided by the Asantehene but the time for
commencement was not mentioned.
Railways
“It is my hope that this year we cut the sod for the
beginning of the reconstruction of railways in this country. We cannot continue to carry all cargo by
road. 95 percent of our cargo is carried on our roads. It put pressure on the
roads.
“The targets are the western and eastern corridors.
Eastern corridor rail line is tied in to the Boankra Inland Port and also the
northern parts including Burkina Faso. We are committed to this project and I
am sure it will take off this year.”
STX
Dead!
Issues that sent governments into opposition
elsewhere do have a place in Ghana’s electoral
landscape otherwise there was no way the NDC would have survived in 2012
with a baggage of unfulfilled promises.
Elsewhere, the one-time NHIS premium and STX Korea
Housing deal as well as the failure to build 50 schools as promised would have
been enough to send them to opposition.
The President admitted that the once talked about
STX housing project that would have provided homes for security agencies
particularly the police, was abandoned because the partners in the deal were
quarreling.
Interestingly, the President did not mention any
housing plans or schemes for the security agencies and rather said the
government had tasked SSNIT to complete the affordable housing project left
behind by the Kufuor administration while he encouraged private entities to
build more houses for the people.
Freebies
The political parties just before the elections in
2012 were virtually promising freebies and President Mahama and his NDC
featured prominently in this.
However, with reality check, the President said “You cannot continue to give freebies when you don’t
have the income to be able to support it. And so, that’s the challenge we’re
faced with.”
“We have a deficit. Our expenditure
exceeds our income at the beginning of 2013 by 12%. We were spending more 12%
of GDP every year than we earn. And so you need to balance out your expenditure
and income.”
“If I could make energy
cheap, I would do so. If I could give out free fuel to the general public, I
would do so. Governance is a very difficult business but because we are taking
good decisions, we are going to benefit in the long run.”
Interesting Times
The President repeated that he was ‘surprised’ to see
the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) head to court over the 2012 general
election because “I thought it was the cleanest election we have had.”
However, he quickly blamed the opposition NPP for
their inability to perform better in government.
For instance, he tried to say that the economy could
have done better had it not been the pendency of the Election Petition. President
Mahama specifically said that when the election petition delayed a lot of
investor shied away.
He said every investor was playing the
‘wait-and-see’ game and shared the experience of an investor who was expecting money from
South Africa and said that once the court delivered its judgement, the funds
arrived after a nail-biting wait.
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