The President-elect of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, campaigned and landslide-won Mexico’s general elections on the promise of continuing on the policies and achievements of her boss, President Andres Obrador. She is the former Mayor of Mexico City and member of the ruling Morena Party. Having done the right things in office, Claudia could foothold the policies and optics of President Obrador, and promised continuity of these policies. That she won the elections thereafter shows the faith the electorate place in the government.
Sequel to disowning his role in this government’s broad-spectrum failure, at UPSA, Dr. Bawumia outlined his bold solutions for the future. Solutions that have no semblance whatsoever with what he has been deputizing and prosecuting over the past 7.5yrs. A gesture suggesting failure of current policies, ways of doing, or of a progressively non-sustainable pathway. Ironically, Dr. Bawumia’s campaign sounds more like a change candidate than a continuity candidate. A change from what? For Dr. Bawumia, it appears the dividends of governance, rather than being his propellers, have become spanners and gremlins in his works – his nemesis.
Economy
The NPP won the 2016 election largely on Dr. Bawumia’s apparent superior economics knowhow. An enviable foothold advantage right there! Through his rhetoric, Ghanaians reposed immense confidence in his ability to steer the economy towards sustainable growth. Fastforward, the reality of the 2024 campaign is that the dollar broke jail and has been on a bloodthirsty rampage. The economic fundamentals are virtually non-existent. All the indicators, i.e. inflation, price levels, exchange rate, unemployment, etc. have become virulent destroyers of businesses and quality of life. We earned a well-deserved junk status rating, a huge debt accumulation, forced DDEP, increased tax burden, food insecurity due to affordability, inability to access international markets, and requests to “shave”international bondholders all represent the malaise state of the economy under Dr. Bawumia’s leadership of the Economic Management Team. Being a technocrat of economics, why Dr. Bawumia could not anchor and foothold the economy for a walk-in-the-park campaign is for the oracle of the gods to answer. How did the economy become a malignant nemesis? Dr. Bawumia has a sickle without grain crops to harvest.
Environment
In 2017, President Nana Addo put his presidency on the line in support of the fight against illegal artisanal miners (galamseyers). A failed promise. We have lost the fight and he is still president. A fight that revealed how duplicitous government is in promoting Galamsey. A fight that saw the back of the venerable Prof. Frimpong-Manso without any gains. Operation Vanguard and Galamstop were stopped! While welders are still manufacturing galamsey changfans in the glare of officials, we continue to spend millions of GHS on tree planting. The cost of treated water from the GWCL keeps rising due to severe pollution. We are losing large swathes of forest cover and arable land for agriculture – a food security risk. Mine chemical-induced congenital diseases have been observed in newborns. At UPSA, Dr. Bawumia promises to make millionaires out of illegal miners with a new solution to the menace. The Amenfi East NPP PC may have taken the lead on that agenda by asking these illegal miners to beat military officers tasked to stop their destructive activities. We may be warming up to a state-sponsored Major Mahama-like casualty. Cowed to align, the Military ranks via Brigadier-General Aggrey-Quarshie presented a lame, uninspiring, and untargeted response that said nothing apart from what we already know.
Education
Talk of policy statements that propelled the NPP into office in 2016 and the Free SHS stands tall. An initiative that broughtforward our collective dream of a progressively free education system. The policy brilliantly conceived but suffered the blunt of speedy-hasty populist implementation. During a BBC Hard Talk session circa 2012, candidate Akufo Addo could not provide a reliable response to Steve Sucker on how he intended to fund the Free SHS initiative as a campaign promise. Still without any sustainable funding plan in 2017, and as expected, the Free SHS policy became a suction hose and a leech in the skin of the Dr. Bawumia-led economy. Prior to funding and liquidity challenges, the Free SHS policy suffered infrastructure deficit right from kick-off. A deficit that would eventually transform SHS education into a frustrating Green-Gold traffic light. An infrastructure deficit that is completely ameliorable by completing the E-blocks as initiated by the previous government. Unfortunately, for Dr. Bawumia, the Free SHS policy designed to be a wide-sweeping populist foothold became yet another nightmarish nemesis.
Energy
From excess capacity in 2017 to Dumsor II in 2024.The government still denies Dumsor II. Thanks to the Yvonne Nelson-led #Dumsormuststop demonstration, it is now official and citizenconfirmed that President Akufo Addo and Dr. Bawumia ushered and supervised Dumsor II. With the advantage of running an economy blessed with excess energy capacity, this government needed to plan and invest in additional capacity commensurate with growth in energy demand over the period. The previous government gave us a foothold on staying ahead of the energy demand curve. Instead of leveraging the foothold of excess energy for industrialization and production, we spent time head butting the cost of this excess energy. After an abysmal sector financial management (The Cash Waterfall Mechanism), energy supply fell behind demand when total installed generation capacity (5134MW) is still in excess of peak demand (4710MW). Aside the discomfort we feel in our homes when the lights go off, businesses are failing due to high operational costs, and reduced productivity. Right under his watch, Dr. Bawumia shepherded another political foothold into the abyss. In the abyss, a monster that would haunt his campaign has been created.
External Impact
Aside the 2014 World Cup blip, this is the worse time since the 4th republic to identify as Ghanaian. Our African kinsmen almost can’t believe the state of our country. What happened to your once exemplar country? How did you people get here? How are the poor and middle class coping? Did I hear the WFP say Ghana risks food insecurity due to affordability? Why is the ILO predicting gloom for your country’s social security scheme? I thought your country solved the energy problem long ago? The plethora of inquisitorial questions keep pouring in. Our heads are constantly battered with the bludgeoning of Africa’s disappointment at what choice we made after a good run of stable socio-economic growth.
This one too shall pass!
DAVID ZEKPAH,
Executive Director,
The 1957 Group.