Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Monday, October 10, 2016
Vice presidential candidate of the
opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has advised
President John Dramani Mahama to desist from making statements that he does not
understand in economics and leave that to his economic handlers.
Dr. Bawumia, a renowned economist, said President
Mahama’s recent interpretation of the assessment of Ghana’s economy by credit
ratings agency, Moody's was ‘embarrassing.’
At the commencement of his second leg tour
of the Brong-Ahafo Region last
week, President Mahama said at Yeji in the Pru-East Constituency that the National
Democratic Congress (NDC) government had done all it needs to sustain the
economy and because of that “a lot of investors have reposed confidence in our
economy. The cedi has also been stabilized.”
Addressing the chiefs in the Yejihene’s palace,
he cited the decreasing inflationary rates and the recent Moody’s ratings of
Ghana as proof of the strides his government had made in the last four years
since the Supreme Court ruled that he was validly elected as president in the
2012 polls.
“Apart from this, Moody’s rating some two
weeks ago also showed that our economy is robust. They said we have moved from
a negative rank to a stable one,” the president declared.
Moody’s, in its recent economic report on
Ghana, defined the country’s economic outlook as stable, putting the rating at
B3.
In fact, President Mahama criticised the
opposition leaders for deliberately ignoring the Moody's report and urged them
to swallow their pride and admit progress, saying, “They were happy when we
were being downgraded; now the same Moody's upgrades us and an opposition
leader says Moody's does not know what it is talking about."
"...when somebody sits and says the
economy is in a crisis you fail to understand where he is seeing that crisis.
He probably has some lens that sees a crisis where crisis does not exist,” the
president posited.
Bawumia’s Fire
However, outlining the NPP’s economic
policies at the party’s manifesto launch yesterday, Dr. Bawumia, a former
deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), indicated that President Mahama
does not appear to understand the implications of the Moody’s ratings.
“Moody’s did not upgrade Ghana’s rating.
Ghana’s rating under Moody’s is still B Negative. It is only the outlook that
has been revised, and that is not equivalent to a rating upgrade.
"Sometimes one wonders whether they
don’t read or they don’t understand! So, let me give Mr. President a free piece
of advice: Mr. President, please desist from embarrassing yourself by stating
that Moody’s has upgraded Ghana. Your economic management team should explain
that difference to you,” Dr Bawumia jabbed.
He said Moody’s rated Ghana’s economy ‘favourably’
in the last year of the NPP government (in 2008) saying, "Without oil,
Ghana was being rated at B+ Positive under the NPP.”
He pointed out that “we’ve now come down
with oil under the NDC and John Mahama to B – (negative) with a stable outlook
in 2016," adding that if President Mahama continues to insist that
economic crisis is an imagined creation by the NPP, then he is "clearly
out of touch."
"Mr. President, the economic crisis
is out there if you care to look out of the Flagstaff House,” the NPP vice
presidential candidate indicated.
Political Gimmick
Dr. Bawumia reiterated the NPP’s
commitment to fully restoring all allowances of nurse and teacher trainees and described
the announcement by President Mahama recently that the government would restore
the allowances that it cancelled as “political gimmick.”
"Nana Akufo-Addo has given his
commitment to restore teacher and nursing trainee allowances fully... Mahama’s
U-turn on allowances is a purely election year gimmick and must be dismissed
with the contempt it deserves… at this stage President Mahama will say anything
to get re-elected,” he stressed.
He said an NPP government would abolish
the tax burden on head porters, known as Kayayei, among others, saying “The
mismanagement of the economy, under this John Mahama-led government, has
resulted in an increase in taxes on virtually everything taxable. Taxes were
imposed even on condoms and cutlasses.
“This has increased the burden on the
private sector and is a disincentive to production.”
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