Tomorrow is December 7, 2024. On this day, as Ghanaians, we will cast our votes in what promises to be one of the most consequential elections of the 4th Republic.
This will be a straightforward contest between NPP and NDC. It is also contest between Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and former President John Dramamine Mahama.
In order that we do not fall into the general presumption that “Ghanaians have short memory” I have decided to remind ourselves as voters of few things.
A lot has happened in the last 16 years. Ghana started commercial oil production in late 2010 and by the end of 2016, we had received US$3.4 billion from oil export.
Yet, in 2013 John Mahama told Ghanaians that the “meat was down to the bone”. In other words, the nation’s coffers had dried up. He took us to the IMF.
In this period, Ghanaians suffered DUMSOR. TV and FM stations that used to operate 24/7 (24-hour economy) started closing at 10pm because they were relying on generators.
John Mahama placed a ban on recruitments into the public sector. With the private sector reeling from DUMSOR and general economic malaise, the Unemployed Graduate Association (UGA) was born.
In 2015, John Mahama finally crushed-landed the economy into the cold arms of the IMF. At this point economic growth was only 2.2%, the lowest since 1984.
Between 2011 and 2015, John Mahama’s government had received more than US$2 billion from crude oil export. Eventually, the oil bonanza fetched his government US$3.4 billion between 2011 and 2016.
In addition to this fresh oil resource, John Mahama borrowed. He increased Ghana’s debt by more than 1000%.
John Mahama cancelled Teacher and Nursing Training Allowances. Trained Teachers and nurses, having struggled through their training without the regular allowances implemented since the 1970s, also faced, for the first time, a blockade from the public sector.
The few that were employed into the public sector to replace retiring staff, had to work for three years without pay. Eventually, John Mahama will pay them three months salary. All this while, John Mahama’s Ministers were also taking double salaries.
Under John Mahama’s watch, 2013 to 2017, more than half a million Ghanaians became poor (GSS, 2018). This was the first time since 1992 that the absolute number of the poor increased in Ghana. This was the time global and African poverty levels were declining.
In this period, we (or at least some of us) do remember that nothing catastrophic had happened to the world or Ghana. We only had John Mahama as our President.
In 2017, the NPP and Akufo- Addo entered government under these economic circumstances. In January 2017, salaries and interest payment alone absorbed 97% of total government revenues.
The only way the Akufo-Addo government could do anything was to borrow, and I must admit, Akufo-Addo indeed borrowed.
In September 2017, Akufo- Addo implemented the Free SHS, a very costly but necessary programme. Since then, over 5.7 million Ghanaian children have benefited from free Secondary Education. It has been described as the single most important social intervention in Ghana’s history. Some of us still remember the many times, schools in the then three Northern Regions closed because John Mahama (a beneficiary of the Northern Scholarship) could not provide funding.
Between 2013 and 2018, BECE candidates that enrolled in Senior Secondary Schools increased from 66.9% to 90.6%. The rapid increase in enrolment suggest that the fees and charges were significant barriers to secondary education in Ghana.
Akufo-Addo restored the Teacher and Nursing training allowances. There are challenges with it, but it is better to have challenged allowances for teacher and nursing trainees than not to have them at all.
Most importantly, Akufo-Addo ended the obnoxious policy of employment ban in the public sector. Akufo-Addo has employed over 200,000 nurses since 2017 into the public health system. More than 100,000 teachers have also been recruited.
Akufo-Addo has largely ended DUMSOR, even though pockets of power disruptions remain particularly in the last few months. This has been extremely costly for government and Ghana. The Akufo-Addo government has spent over US$5 billion in the last 8 years to keep the lights on.
Akufo Addo has built 97km of railway line from Tema to Mpakadan at a total cost of $447 million. This is the first-ever standard gauge railway line in Ghana.
In the last 8 years, Akufo-Addo has built 5 interchanges including the Pokuase four-tier interchange at a total cost equivalent to the cost of the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange built by John Mahama.
Akufo-Addo and his government have completed 37 hospitals from scratch in the last 8 years. They have also completed 9 hospitals started under previous governments. And Akufo-Addo has started commissioning hospitals under agenda 111. Sixty-six (66) of these hospitals will be completed this year.
Under the “year of roads”, Akufo-Addo has asphalted large tracks of inner roads in our major cities and towns. Akufo-Addo has completed the dualization of Nswam-Apadwa road started by Kufour. Akufo-Addo has completed the famous Eastern Corridor Road.
Akufo-Addo has implemented the Medical Drone facility that flies critical medicines across the country, saving lives in the process.
In November, Akufo-Addo commissioned 80 newly completed educational projects across Ghana’s 16 regions. This is expected to bring improvement in access to quality education and better learning environments for students nationwide.
Akufo-Addo has banished the era of “no chalk” and “I won’t give you chalk”. Akufo-Addo is on course to eliminate the blackboard and chalks altogether. Akufo-Addo has brought white board and board markers to our schools.
Akufo-Addo has almost completed the Ghana Card project, which has become the bedrock of the digitalization project championed by Dr Bawumia.
Challenges remain no doubt. Under Akufo-Addo, poverty has increased as it has across the world. The exchange rate of the cedi has deteriorated sharply as it has for many developing countries. Our debts have grown as it has for the world as a whole and for developing countries. Inflation has surged as it has for global inflation. America and Europe have recorded their highest inflation in 40 years.
The simple explanation for these challenges is that regardless of what anybody thinks the world in the last 4 years experienced a pandemic (COVID-19). As a health crisis, COVID-19 has abated but the world still leaves with its economic consequences.
Ghana must not forget that in 2020, teachers and so many other public sector workers sat at home for close to a year. Akufo-Addo paid all these workers. Nobody was sacked.
This uncomplicated explanation does not absolve Akufo-Addo of the mistakes he and his government has made in the last years, such as the attempt to build a mammoth cathedral.
These are but few of the things that have happened in Ghana in the last 16 years. We must move forward. As we cast our ballot tomorrow, we are participating in deciding the fate of Ghana. To move forward with the NPP and Dr Bawumia or the NDC and John Mahama?
John Mahama has had the opportunity at the highest level as President. We must not forget his record in government. Dr Bawumia has been behind some of the critical accomplishments of the Akufo-Addo government including the Ghana Card, medical drones, and digitalization agenda. We also know that Dr Bawumia could not get all his ideas implemented: the fate of all vice presidents. From the political campaign platforms in the last one year, it is not complicated to assume that free SHS, Agenda 111, medical drones, Ghana Card, digitilisation, railway expansion project, on-going Accra-Winneba road, Tema motorway, Accra-Kumasi dualization/bypass projects and many others will be protected and completed when we vote for Dr Bawumia.
It is equally uncomplicated to assume that these projects and initiatives might suffer if we vote for John Mahama. In 2018, John Mahama said if he has GHS2 billion Ghana cedis he will not spend it on Free Senior High School. And there is a video of Asiedu Nketia saying NDC will abolish Free SHS if it wins power.
Of course, in place of the Free SHS and other impactful policies and programmes, we will get the hard-to-explain 24-hour economy if we vote for NDC and John Mahama.
Ghana must think and think well and much. As the Italians say: Chi poco pensa
molto erra” meaning, “He who thinks little, errs much”
