There is no doubt that the Mahama-led administration has recorded some achievements with infrastructure development, and indeed, it makes no secret of it – urban roads rehabilitation and re-surfacing, the Circle Inter-change, the upcoming Kasoa inter-change, intercity highways, cocoa roads, community day secondary schools, tertiary medical facilities, CHP compounds, and many more find pride of place in Mahama’s own account of his achievements, signaling without equivocation that for the NDC, election 2016 will be fought on a track record of infrastructure projects.
The President indeed, set the tone on Thursday, when he commissioned the fourth Community Day Senior High School at Nyanoa-Kwaobaah in the Upper West Akyem District of the Eastern region.
Emphasising that in his estimation infrastructure was more important than the economic and social well-being of Ghanaians, the President likened himself to Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, who in spite of his impressive record of building world class infrastructure to support Ghana’s economic growth, was overthrown and rejected by Ghanaians.
The President did not mince words in telling Ghanaians that they must endure the pain they are going through today, because it is necessary to building a legacy of prosperity and socio-economic progress. In his view, putting money in people’s pocket is secondary to infrastructure projects.
“What is the use of money in your pocket when you are sick and you cannot get to a hospital to be cured?” he quizzed rather rhetorically, arguing further that, the sacrifices that Ghanaians make today will pave the way to a better and prosperous future. He pledged that his second term will focus on “putting money into the pockets of Ghanaians”.
In an obvious response to his critics, who accuse his administration of insensitivity, the President said, “It is good politics to say things are hard but the money we are raising are being used for things that would benefit this country, you cannot have jobs when you don’t have social infrastructure, so we have spent these last four years to bring these social infrastructure back to scratch.
Some political opponents have questioned the cost of these infrastructure projects, while some analysts have suggested that infrastructure, though necessary for economic growth, should not take precedence over the survival of the very people for whom the infrastructure is intended. Turning the President’s rhetorical question on its head, some pundits have also asked: “Of what use is a hospital when one does not have the means to access healthcare? This position resonates with the slogan of Dr Charles Wereko Brobby’s defunct United Ghana Movement (UGM), which said: development is all about the people. The argument that election 2016 will therefore have to settle is: which is pre-eminent, infrastructure or macro-economic stability?
Various schools of thought have expressed diverse positions on the matter. A paper produced by a team of experts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2001, titled Macro-Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction, cites economic growth as the single most important factor influencing poverty, and posits that macroeconomic stability is essential for high and sustainable rates of growth.
Easterly and Kraay (1999) suggest that macroeconomic stability is the cornerstone of any successful effort to increase private sector development and economic growth. According to them, cross-country regressions using a large sample of countries suggest that growth, investment, and productivity are positively correlated with macroeconomic stability.
There seems to be a convergence among experts that macro-economic stability takes pre-eminence over infrastructure. Indicators such as low inflation, stable currency, low interest rates, low budget deficits are necessary to ensuring a healthy economy, one that attracts investments, increases productivity, boosts economic growth, and provide great opportunities for poverty reduction. When President Mahama promises to put money in the pockets of Ghanaians, it is not to be taken literally.
What it simply means is that, he will bring down inflation so that workers income will be worth more in real terms than it is today. It also means, he will manage interest rates, the local currency, budget deficit etc in a way that will encourage business expansion, and create employment for the people. These are what the President seems to suggest should wait till his second term, because he is busy building infrastructure.
With this logic, it is not surprising that Ghana has slipped on almost all the convergence criteria for the ECOWAS Common Currency and has missed the opportunity to improve the lot of Ghanaians.
Source of Ghana’s Economic Woes
There is perhaps no denying the fact that the difficulties that the country finds itself today could have been avoided if so much had not been thrown so recklessly at election 2012. Available data suggest that, Ghana’s budget performance in 2012 was simply thrown to the dogs, putting the economy in serious distress, recovery of which experts say will not happen earlier than 2017.
At the end of 2012, Ghana’s budget deficit stood at Ghc 8.7 bn ($4.6bn), amounting to 12.1 percent of GDP using the rebased GDP numbers (or some 20 percent of GDP in terms of the old GDP series).
This is said to be the highest recorded budget deficit in Ghana’s post-independence history. And yet the figures are said to be very conservative. Arrears to contractors and other service providers are excluded. If these arrears were to be factored, the deficit for 2012 would be some 23 percent of GDP using rebased numbers (or some 35 percent of GDP using the old GDP series), according to the renowned economist and banker, Dr Mahmud Bawumia.
Traditionally, such huge deficits have been bridged through excessive borrowing, unbridled taxation, and cut-back in government expenditure, all of which in their own ways impact on the country’s economic performance. While most people may not be able to follow the rather sophisticated economic analysis, most voters can tell from their socio-economic fortunes that something must have gone terribly wrong. In fact, no amount of political propaganda can relief the pain that many disappointed voters feel in their hearts about the mismanagement of the country’s economy. This is what is likely to linger on the minds of most Ghanaians as they ponder who to cast their votes for in November, 2016.
Excuses such as provided by the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hon Alhaji Collins Dauda, to the effect that the Government is justified in piling up public debts through excessive borrowing because Ghanaians don’t like paying taxes will only infuriate voters who say they are being over burdened with taxes. The absurdity in statements such as this becomes glaring when juxtaposed against the fact that the GRA almost every year exceeds its revenue targets.
The Corruption Factor
Some have questioned whether the government couldn’t have achieved this same level of infrastructure development it is touting without inflicting so much pain? The verdict out there seems to suggest that if the government had been prudent in managing the state’s resources, and had taken urgent steps to curb the wanton corruption that has characterized many of the public procurements, from SADA, through GYEEDA, to SUBA, and most recently the re-branding of Metro Mass Transit buses, so much taxes wouldn’t have been necessary to finance this level of development.
Of course every government has had its own share of corruption scandals, but what makes the difference is how a government responds to proven acts of corruption. Resignations are not enough; so are refunds of the ill-gotten wealth. It will take a combination of the two, plus criminal prosecution to send the right signals that a government is serious about fighting corruption.
Former President Kufour’s government swore zero tolerance for corruption, and late Prof. Evans Atta Mills pledged to continue the fight. Both men, however, seem to have come up against similar challenges of how to deal with recalcitrant appointees.
Kufour started on a good note in his handling of the Mallam Issa case but softened up all too quickly and could not muster the tenacity and will-power to deal in the same manner with Muktar Bamba and Richard Anane. When it mattered most, we only had excuses from the former president. His insistence on the media providing him with evidence before investigating alleged acts of corruption was the final indication that the government was going nowhere with ‘zero tolerance for corruption’.
Clearly, President Mills, compared to former President Kufour, started his fight against corruption on a softer note. Many felt Muntaka was left off the hook in spite of his resignation and the directive to repay State funds expended on his girlfriend. The president argued at the time that, accepting Muntaka’s resignation and ordering him to repay the expenses incurred by the State on his girlfriend’s travel is a demonstration of the will to fight corruption. Public Agenda, though agrees that these are corrective measures, they cannot be described as punitive and therefore deterrent enough.
The appointment of Baba Kamara as Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria in spite of his being cited in the Marbey and Johnson corruption scandal also smacked of poor judgment. But the most disappointing of all of late President Mills’ actions or inactions in his fight against corruption was his inability to ensure that his directive to his ministers on February 23 2009 to file their assets declaration forms with the Auditor General within seven days was complied with.
Though, the recent Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published by Transparency International (TI) has ranked Ghana 56th out of 168 countries in the world with a score of 47 in the fight against corruption, indicating a slight improvement on previous performances, most Ghanaians still feel the Mahama administration is yet to demonstrate a strong resolve to punish corruption.
For anti-graft CSOs such as the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Send Ghana and the likes, and for many more Ghanaians, 2016 is a year of reckoning on how seriously the government has taken the fight against corruption.
Source: Steve Manteaw
Public Agenda
