Ayariga Responds to Akufo-Addo

I have listened keenly to Hon Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at his press conference organized on Thursday 13, March 2008 to announce the platform of his campaign and the composition of his campaign team. Let me congratulate him for that effort.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo indicated that the 2008 election is going to be run on the relative records of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) era which span the period from 1982 to 2000 and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) era which began in 2001 till date. Let me indicate that Professor John Evans Atta-Mills, the flagbearer of the NDC accepts the challenge that the December 2008 election should be run on the relative records of the two eras (the PNDC/NDC era and the NPP era). Of course, Prof John Evans Atta-Mills will add to the records of the PNDC/NDC era, his vision of the future.

Akuffo Addo in his speech made a number of categorical statements regarding the two eras which I want to address directly.

Economy in Shambles in 2001

Akufo-Addo and the leadership of the NPP have consistently created the impression that Ghana’s economy was in shambles when they took over and the current macro-economic indicators we see now reflects their economic policy ingenuity. Let us examine the macro-economic achievements of the PNDC/NDC and those of the NPP.

It is instructive to note that when Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings took power on 31st December 1981, he met an economy that was experiencing a negative growth level.

Indeed the World Bank reports that inflation was at 122% in 1983. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth per capita in 1983 was -7.1%. The Ghanaian state was in a crisis and Eboe Hutchful in his book “Ghana’s Adjustment Experience the Paradox of Reform” paints a vivid picture of the crisis. The state machinery had so broken down that even tax collection dropped from 18.6% of GDP in 1970/71 to 6.5% of GDP in 1984, one of the lowest ratios in Africa. Collection of domestic sales tax fell from 1.7% of GDP in 1970-71 to 0.4% of GDP in 1982 and excise duty from 3% to 0.7%. Between 1972 and 1982, the size of the budget shrank from 18.3% of GDP to only 10.1% of GDP. Hutchful concluded that “An IMF mission investigating Ghana’s tax structure concluded that tax evasion had reached frightening proportions”. Indeed he admits that the crisis was systemic and the state itself had lost its legitimacy.

Contrary to what NPP propagandists like Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey will want us to believe, the crisis was not created by Jerry John Rawlings. Here again, I wish to quote a 2007 World Bank report on Ghana “Ghana Meeting the Challenge of Accelerated and Shared Growth – Country Economic Memorandum” (Volume III Nov 28,2007). Paragraph 1.45 of the report states that:

“… a deteriorating sectoral, monetary and fiscal policy environment combined with a series of weather and external shocks led to political and economic instability during much of the 1960s and 1970s. During that period, GDP per capita declined continuously and inflation reached double- and triple-digit figures year after year. This mixture of high inflation, negative external reserves, bad policies, declining cocoa production and price, severe droughts and political instability led to a major social and economic crisis by early 1980s”

So clearly, the unprecedented social political and economic crisis was not created by Rawlings or the PNDC. Indeed it was that crisis that created Rawlings and the PNDC.

With that crisis in 1983 the PNDC embarked on radical reforms. The prudent fiscal policies that the PNDC introduced led to the unprecedented reduction of inflation from 122% in 1983 to around 10% in 1985 and the GDP which was experiencing negative growth of -7.1% in 1983 was halted and by 1985 Ghana’s GDP grew at 1.5%! (2007 World Bank report on Ghana “Ghana Meeting the Challenge of Accelerated and Shared Growth – Country Economic Memorandum” (Volume III Nov 28,2007) paragraph 1.47). If we add -7.1 to 1.5 it means that within 2 years the PNDC had grown the economy by 8.6%! This is unprecedented in the economic history of Ghana and this record has not yet been surpassed by anyone.

The NPP on the other hand in 2001 met an economy which had already gotten its fundamentals right. As a matter of fact, Ghana’s average yearly inflation for December 1999 was 12.4% (paragraph 17, 2000 budget statement). Even for December 2000 the average yearly inflation was 25.2%. It was the end of period inflation which stood at 40.5% in December 2000 which the NPP propagandists dubiously site as the rate of inflation when they took over whilst being silent on the annual average which was 25.2%. The global economic crisis of 2000 led to increase in inflation to about 40%. But this was not symptomatic of an economy in crisis. It was temporary. Granted that inflation was about 40% the current 2008 inflation figures of 13% simply shows that whilst PNDC/NDC brought inflation down from 122% to about 10% in two years the greatest fiscal policy feat of the NPP has been to reduce inflation from 40% to 13% in seven years.

Equally, NPP met an economy that was experiencing an annual average GDP growth of 4.6%. In 2000, because of the internal and external pressures, GDP growth declined to 3.6%. Even if we take the 2000 GDP growth rate, with GDP in 2007 being 6.8% after 7 years of NPP stay in office they have only increased GDP growth by a margin of 3.2%. On the other hand PNDC/NDC which met the economy growing at -7.1% in 1983 grew it to 3.6% in 2000 when we left office. It means that between 1983 to 2000 PNDC/NDC had grown the economy by a margin of 10.7%. NPP can never match this enviable record of the PNDC/NDC.

It is very important to take into consideration the fact that it is far more challenging to reverse an economy experiencing negative growth (especially at -7.1%) than to accelerate the growth of an economy that is already growing at 3.6%. Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo has therefore misled Ghanaians by his assertion that NPP inherited a bankrupt economy. If any government can be credited with the transformation of the economy of Ghana so far it is the PNDC/NDC.

Health

Another fallacy in the assertions of Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo is his attempt to paint a positive picture of NPP’s performance in the health sector. It is true that NPP passed the legislation to establish a health insurance scheme for the country.

With his figure of 9,791,547 enrolment with health insurance schemes nationwide it is only ignorance which would lead any one to measure the level of the well-being of a country by reference to how many people registered with mutual health insurance schemes in the country. The standard and universally accepted measure of the well-being of a country lies in measures of life expectancy, maternal, child and infant mortality, access to health care services and doctor-population ratios. The 2007 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR) on Ghana is very clear on the comparative records of the performance of the PNDC/NDC and NPP in the social sectors.

According to the 2007 UNDP Report on Ghana “life expectancy at birth among Ghanaians has not changed significantly over the years but still remains very low” (P.34). Child mortality in the country remains very high. Over the period 1983 – 1998 (PNDC/NDC), infant mortality declined from 77 deaths per 1000 live births to 57 deaths per 1000 live births. However, since 1999 to 2006 (NPP era) infant mortality has increased from the 57 deaths per 1000 live births to 71 deaths per 1000 births. Also over the period 1983 – 1998 (PNDC/NDC), under-five mortality rates declined from 155 deaths per 1000 live births to 108 deaths per 1000 live births. However, from 1999 to 2006 (NPP era) under-five mortality increased from 108 deaths per 1000 live births to 111 deaths per 1000 live births. The UNDP report concludes that maternal mortality has not improved significantly in the past five years (NPP era). The figures still hover around 187 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006 and these are institutional data. Malaria still remains very prevalent whilst HIV/AIDS has become a major health problem accounting for over 40% of out-patient visits, 12% of all deaths and resulting in about 140,000 children orphaned. Indeed malaria prevalence increased form 42.9% in 2000 to 44.1% in 2004 (P.39). The report concludes that “malaria attacks are also associated with poor social, economic and environmental conditions” (P.40).

On Guinea worm, the report says that “Currently, Ghana has an infamous record of having the world’s second highest prevalence of Guinea worm, after Sudan” (P.41). The NDC had almost eliminated Guinea worm in Ghana by 2000. The Report describes Ghana as “a low income, food-deficit country”. “The country’s overall performance in terms of agricultural production and productivity remains inadequate and Ghana has failed to make progress in food security” (P.45)

Let me conclude with two indicators – the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Human Poverty Index (HPI) of Ghana. “The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge and decent standard of living … Data available indicates that since 1995 there has been a steady improvement in human development in Ghana. The Human Development Index (HDI) for Ghana rose from 0.531 in 1995 to 0.568 in 2002 and decelerated slightly to 0.540 in 2006.”(p.49) The report maintains that even in the area of adult literacy, whilst there has been a rise from 0.488 in 1991/2 to 0.500 by 1998/99, by 2005/2006 it has declined.(p.49) So even adult literacy in Ghana has declined under the NPP government!!!

Let me conclude with the UNDP’s measure of human poverty in Ghana using the Human Poverty Index (HPI). The UNDP defines HPI as “a summary measure of deprivation in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life as measured by probability of not surviving to age 40, knowledge as measured by adult literacy, and a decent standard of living as measured by two indicators; the percentage of population without sustainable access to an improved water source and the percentage of children under weight. The index has a direct relationship to the incidence of deprivation; the lower the index, the fewer the number of people deprived”. The report concludes that:

“Available data points to the fact that for 2006, Ghana scored 37.3 percent which signifies that one out of every three Ghanaian was deprived in terms of a healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. These have worsened from 34.2 percent in 1998”.

By this conclusion even the UNDP is stating emphatically that the condition of the Ghanaian has worsened under the NPP regime!! The living conditions of Ghanaians were better in 1998 that 2006 and things have gotten even worse since then. This is the story of the NPP government and if Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is a good story teller then he should tell it as it is and not embark on a course of public deceit pursuant to his inordinate ambition to become a President.

Increasing Inequality

The World Bank in its 2007 report on Ghana identified that inequality continues to increase in Ghana. Rural, urban and north-south (Ghana) inequality has increased. According to the Report: “The evidence shows that the northern savannah area, which is by far the poorest of the ecological zones, has been left behind in the national reduction in poverty.” (Paragraph 1.16 p.7 of World Bank Report).

Ostentatious Government Spending

The NPP era has witnessed the most ostentatious spending on executive comfort – especially the comfort of the Presidency. Within seven years President Kufuor caused to be renovated at great public expense the Osu Castle, the Peduase Lodge, and has so far spent over US$60 million on a Presidential complex which is still under construction. Presently the NPP government is seeking to purchase a fleet of presidential jets costing about US$105 for the comfort of the Presidency.

This gluttonous NPP government vividly demonstrated their scheme of prioritization when they contracted a loan of US$60 million from the Indian government and applied US$30 million to the seed money for the construction of a presidential complex and the other half for rural electrification. It is striking to note that at the same time the Indian government had given Mali, Congo and Ivory Coast similar loan facilities. Mali spent her entire money on rural electrification and financing the importation of agricultural machinery and tractors from India; Congo spent her money on the construction of a cement plant, purchase of buses and the rehabilitation of her manganese mines; Cote D’Ivoire spent her money on agricultural programmes and assisting urban transportation. The gluttonous NPP government spent half of Ghana’s money on the “importation” of a Presidential complex! This betrays the misplacement of priorities which has been the style of the NPP. Whilst other governments spent on social sectors and strategic economic initiatives, the government of Ghana was spending on the comfort of the presidency. There is no correlation between the improvement of governmental efficiency and the construction of a presidential complex.

The story of the NPP government is that whilst it overspent on the comfort of the few in government, the promises of basic amenities/facilities to the ordinary person remain ignored. Ghana currently has a housing deficit of 500,000. Our annual housing demand is 100,000 but we have an annual supply of only 25,000 – 40,000.

In 2005 the NPP government promised to construct 5000 housing units for the ordinary Ghanaian.

As I write now in 2008, not a single one of those houses has been completed for occupation by the ordinary person. What we saw rather was that at the 50th anniversary of our independence (which the NPP had itself opposed), the NPP government spent millions of dollars within a short time to construct many executive mansions for foreign dignitaries! Is this a government for foreign dignitaries or a government for the people of Ghana? At that time the NPP had promised a cocoa farmers housing scheme.

After several years (5) the government of the NPP had constructed only 1 house for cocoa farmers, even though within a few months they were able to complete hundreds of executive mansions for foreign dignitaries who were residing in Ghana for just a couple of days! Similarly, today the NPP government is seeking to purchase a fleet of jets for the presidency at a cost exceeding US$105 million at a time when people in Accra and most urban and rural areas cannot get even clean water to drink!

The abysmal story of the NPP government is best captured in their own 2006, 2007 and 2008 budget statements. In 2006 whilst the conspicuous spending on the Peduase lodge was taking place for the comfort of the Presidency they had dug only 10 hand dug wells for water for the ordinary Ghanaian! In the 2007 budget statement they promised the ordinary Ghanaian at p.167 that they will dig 1,589 hand dug wells for ordinary rural Ghanaians. In the 2008 budget report they had dug only 63 hand dug wells in 2007 for drinking water for Ghanaians! The difference between 1,589 and 63 constitutes the measure of the difference between people like Akuffo Addo’s rhetoric and their real commitment to the welfare of the ordinary Ghanaian!!

Fellow Ghanaians, this is the NPP story which must be told to all Ghanaians and let Akuffo-Addo tell me that any of what I have said is a lie. I challenge him to a public debate on the records of the PNDC/NDC and the sorry story of the NPP.

Inventors of Democracy?

Akuffo-Addo speaks as if the NPP is the inventor of freedom of speech and democracy in Ghana. Whilst admitting that There were local and external pressures which ensured the transition to democratic governance it is a far cry from the truth for Akufo-Addo and his colleagues to create the impression that they created freedom of speech and invented Ghana’s democracy. All the major private radio stations that have been in operation in Ghana (the Joy FM, Peace FM, Adom FM, Gold FM etc) were all licensed under the NDC and they have been operating freely since then as they appear to be doing now. It is important to remember that the very foundation of our democracy is the Constitution of the 1992. Interestingly the NPP who claim to be the inventors of democracy boycotted the drafting of this Constitution. Since NPP came to power there has not been a significant movement to amend it - thus attesting to the great constitutional enterprise of the PNDC/NDC. All previous institutions and attempts at establishing democratic governance in Ghana since Nkrumah was short lived and unsuccessful. It is only the PNDC/NDC effort to establish constitutional democracy which has endured and witnessed a successful and unprecedented transfer of political power from one political party to another based on an electoral outcome. It is the PNDC/NDC that is the inventor of the current democracy of Ghana.

Talk of Freedom

Another major lie emanating from Nana Akuffo-Addo is the impression that NPP brought freedom to Ghana. Ghana’s current air of freedom predates the NPP. Indeed it was the air of freedom that existed that enabled Kufuor to campaign and win an election in December 2000. If Nana Akuffo-Addo is in tune with current development thinking, he would have known that we have moved away from thinking of freedom in simplistic political libertarian terms. Freedom now encompasses a wide gamut of indicators including social and economic conditions and one’s general state of wellbeing. And if you avert your mind to the welfare indicators I gave at the beginning of this article, one can conclude that the current state of loss of freedom of Ghanaians is worse. How can any one in Ghana speak of human rights in the light of the murder of the Yaa-Naa and tens of his elders in the day light and the gruesome execution of Issah Mobilla in military custody without any one held to account for these acts? How can we talk of a free society when Ghanaians go to bed in fear that cocaine ridden armed robbers will invade the privacy of their homes to divest them of their property and rape their wives and daughters in their full glare and kill them afterwards.

How can anyone reasonably say that we live in a free society under these prevailing conditions?