Ghanaians may have been spooked by the strange sense of political candor former Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey demonstrated when he showered praises on former deputy Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, at a recent lecture on the economy at the Central University College in Accra.
Despite their political and ideological differences, Prof Botchwey, nonetheless, did not only confirm and vindicate almost all what Dr. Bawumia said at a similar lecture at the same venue, which painted a bleak picture of the national economy, but also argued that the 2014 performance of the economy could be worse than in 2012 and 2013, considering the current state of affairs.
Since that lecture, Prof. Botchwey has been hailed by Ghanaians across the political divide, especially members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), given his locus as longest serving Finance Minister in Ghana and in the affairs of both the government and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
But what many do not know is that, Prof. Botchwey has his eyes firmly fixed on the presidency, and according to our sources he is hell bent on contesting the presidential primaries of the NDC with the sole aim of unseating President Mahama when nominations open next year.
The aL-hAJJ can today report that as opposition forces in the country scheme to forcefully topple President Mahama’s government even as he struggles to put the almost collapsed economy in shape, some top brass of the ruling party not satisfied with his leadership style have landed on the Rawlings’ Former Finance Minister to replace him as NDC Flag bearer for the 2016 elections.
The leading members of NDC hatching this plan are mainly the so-called PNDC ‘old guards’ who now think is it time for one of them to take over the mantle of leadership of the party and the nation.
Prof. Botchwey’s open-mindedness and the rare political frankness that he exhibited in his lecture at Central University College was to provide the needed fillip to his public image as a statesman before he could launch his discreet but furtive consultations within and outside the NDC for the presidency of the Republic of Ghana.
Insiders familiar with this latest arrangement in the governing party have disclosed that either the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority, Mr. Sylvester Mensah or Mr Alex Sebgefia, former deputy Chief of Staff, now deputy Minister of Defense designate, is being considered to partner Prof Botchwey as running mate.
Aside the duo’s respective loyalty to the party, competence and professional experience, their trump card is premised on their ethnic background. Mr Sylvester Mensah, who is a Ga native from the Greater Accra region, also traces his genealogy from the Volta region while Mr Sebgefia hails from the NDC’s ‘World Bank’.
This paper’s investigation has revealed that, consultations with “stakeholders” are almost completed with a sizeable number of them ceding to the idea to substitute the inscrutable President Mahama with Ghana’s longest serving finance minister with any of the above-mentioned two NDC stalwarts as running mate.
While some of the stakeholders have raised concern about the decision to float a new candidate to replace or contest president Mahama at the primaries, party insiders say majority are in favour.
This ‘minority group,' The aL-hAJJ’s reliable sources revealed are calling for “constructive engagement” with Flagstaff House to iron out outstanding differences. They would not want to engage in any acrimonious campaign akin to “FONKAR-GAME” to replace President John Mahama.
The majority, this paper has gathered are bent on going ahead with Prof. Botchwey, and have also vowed to float a candidate to contest the 2016 elections even if as an Independent candidate or on the ticket of a yet-to-be formed party.
Prof. Kwesi Botchwey served as the country’s Finance and Economic Planning Minister from 1982 to 1995 when he resigned amid acrimonious relationship with former President Rawlings and some members of his government.
His about-turn to contest President Mahama observers say is not surprising given the political fragility of the President and his government at the moment brought about by the vulnerability of the economy.
As an astute politician, Prof. Botchwey has aptly calculated the national disaffection and anger that the current economic hardship has brought to the ordinary citizens of this country and the likelihood of the economy taking a center stage in the political campaign of the 2016 election.
However, political observers believe that he cannot easily extricate himself from the failings of the economy having been a member of the much-respected Economic Advisory Council that has been advising both President Mills and President Mahama from 2009 to date.
Again, he is also the board chairman of the state-owned Ghana National Gas Company that has been tasked to produce the much needed gas infrastructure to support the nation’s energy-thirsty economy.
However, another observer argued that Prof Kwesi Botchwey and his handlers could easily find an alibi that he has been relegated to the fringes so far as economic management is concern.
He can say that neither the President nor the Ministry of Finance has heeded to his wise counsel in managing the economy and, therefore, there was little he could do to influence either economic policy direction or implementation.
Should it happen, his contest against President Mahama would be his second attempt at the Presidency having contested and lost to the late President Mills in the 2002 presidential primaries of NDC with the support of some of the then party’s national executives including party chairman, Dr. Obed Asamoah.
His appointment as the board chairman of the Ghana National Gas Company by the late president was to cement a reconciliation process that was to bring back all the aggrieved members of the NDC back to the party’s fold.
This time around, pundits are gauging his political successes against the failures of President Mahama, especially in the area of the economy.
Prof Botchwey, last Tuesday evening, mounted the podium to deliver a lecture as the third speaker in the Distinguished Speaker Series and said, he had no plans of offering counter arguments to the gloomy picture painted by the former NPP running mate Dr. Bawumia, adding, ‘I offer no rebuttals. I do agree with much of what he (Dr. Bawumia) said”.
In a similar lecture delivered in the Distinguished Speaker Series organized by the Central University College in Accra recently, the former deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana diagnosed the ailment afflicting the national economy citing rising inflation, depreciating currency, rising interest rates and high twin deficits for two years consecutively and a potential third year.
The astute economists and the man likely to partner Nana Akufo-Addo again or lead the NPP in the 2016 elections further argued that a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was inevitable if government’s management of the economy did not improve.
Prof. Kwesi Botchwey on his part said, “Mahamudu is a young man whose professional credentials I particularly respect; I offer no rebuttals [to his lecture]. On the contrary, I do agree with much of what he said.”
According to Professor Botchwey, a nation’s political economy shows the way political forces influence economic decisions.
” We must study and analyze the true state of things,” he noted.
Reflecting on what he called the critical challenges affecting the country’s political economy, the former Finance Minister said, “I see a nation reeling in widespread disaffection; a bit of despair…, a popular mood that is marked by some frustration and rising cynicism about any and all utterances, explanation and assurances by government and even by technocrats and public servants.”
He said the feeling out there supposed that “everybody in public office is somehow engaged in corruption and just money grabbing”.
Prof Botchwey pointed out that there is the need for the managers of the economy to pay attention to “policy credibility” for the restoration of macro-economic stability which has eluded the country since the first quarter of 2013.
“We have missed macro-economic targets in two consecutive years with budget outcomes deviating not marginally…, but rather significantly from published forecast,” he said.
He further explained that there has been some erosion of the country’s credibility among the public and development partners, and that is worrying.
Prof. Botchwey also said that the panic driven measures announced by the BoG as a counter to the fast- depreciating currency did not work because “the very structure of government expenditure had begun to impose certain rigidity on the national budget.”
In last year’s budget alone; the wage bill and interest cost on public debt accounted for about 82 percent of government spending, he added.
While Dr. Bawumia in his lecture likened Ghana's economy to a 'boneshaker' vehicle riding on a bumpy road, Prof Botchwey's perception of the country's political economy was also not complimentary.
"I see a spill-over of this mood onto our roads in a breakdown of discipline as motorists take the laws into their own hands and defy traffic lights and the police. Motorists who drive on multiple lanes and on the shoulders of often badly designed roads and in the process condemn law abiding motorists to long hours of waiting in endless queues as armies of hawkers desperate to make a living thrust a bewildering assortment of words in their faces and into their cars.
"I hear this frustration in the scathing curses of angry motorists, stuck in traffic as the odd dispatch rider doing his duty comes swooping by ordering or often screaming at motorists to make way for some functionary in a hurry.
"It is also seen in the desperate faces of destitute who scratch cars or rain insults if one fails to offer help."
Prof Kwesi Botchwey was quick in admitting that Ghana's political economy cannot only be looked through the perceptions he described above saying "we must study and analyze the true state of things."
Professor Botchwey called for well-structured policies that would ensure that loans taken either from the international markets or from the IMF are paid.
While applauding the contributions of the civil society groups which have sprang up in recent years, the former Finance Minister said it is time to refocus on social mobilization not just on the wrongs of government.
He stated that Ghana is reeling from economic woes because it has largely been living beyond its means.
Making references to the recently held Senchi Economic Forum, he said Ghana’s wage bill, interest costs and public debts accounted for about 82 per cent of public expenditure, leaving 18 per cent of total government revenue for everything else, including vital expenditure.
Professor Botchwey said for 2014 alone, out of the projected revenue of Ghc24.062 billion, statutory spending on the wage bill, pensions, external loan repayments and various funds, among others would take 101.2 per cent.
“So we are basically living beyond our means and must borrow from the domestic and external markets to finance the deficits including sovereign bond issues from the capital markets”.
The consequence of such borrowing, he said, had resulted in a huge public indebtedness, while the graduation of the country to lower middle income status had reduced the country’s access to long term financing from multilateral institutions like the World Bank.
“Nothing comes free; the markets will require you to adopt policies that make macroeconomic stability, with low deficit preferably funded without undue recourse to money printing.
“In other words, these statutory and quasi-statutory funds alone take all government revenue, leaving a negative GH¢287 million for development expenditure and expenditure on goods and services,” he stated.
As part of measures to address the country’s economic challenges, he said energy pricing was very critical, “not only for the 2014 budget but also for the medium term.”
According to Prof. Botchwey, any fiscal medium-term measures proposed by the government should be credible and not be doubted.
“We noted at the economic forum discussions that the target set for the medium term in the proposed home-grown financial and economic policy framework may not be easily attainable especially as regards the target of reducing the wage bill from 57 per cent to 35 per cent by 2017,” he stressed.
While commending civil society’s active role in exposing wrongdoing and lapses in governance, Prof. Botchwey asked that their focus be expanded to social mobilisation for development.
“It is time to stop the moaning and recriminations and get on with the business of national development,” he said.
This rare candor by the leading member of the ruling NDC has won him national and bi-partisan accolade with the talkative editor-in-chief of the pro-NPP New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako leading the praise choir.
Kweku Baako was quoted by the peacefmonline.com to have 'saluted' Prof Botchwey for giving credence to the economic ideas which was put forward by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. “I respect him, in fact, I salute him rather for the display of intellectual honesty in the way he acknowledged Bawumia’s preceding lecture…The NDC, unfortunately, look at Bawumia’s lecture through partisan lenses just because Bawumia was the running mate for the major opposition party. So, straightaway their reaction was predictable. “But it was narrow. It was uneducated. I’m sorry to say so. It was non-intellectual,” he said.
On his part, a leading member of the NDC and the party’s Central Region Communications Director said, he might have misunderstood Bawumia when he launched scathing attacks on his gloomy prognosis of the economy.
“I am really humbled by the supplication of Kwesi Botchway. Perhaps we misunderstood Dr. Bawumia…if his statements have been reaffirmed by Kwesi Botchway, who am I? How can I bastardize people who are experts in this field (economy)?” questioned the Central Regional Communications Director of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Allotey Jacobs.
Analyzing Prof. Kwesi Botchwey’s lecture and juxtaposing it with that of Dr. Bawumia, the NDC Central Regional Communications Director said, “perhaps we misunderstood him”. He admitted that there was some truths in the submission of Dr. Bawumia and added that there is the need to now come together as Ghanaians and fix the ailing economy.
Contributing to a panel discussion on ‘Kokrokoo,' Allotey Jacobs added that “from what he (Kwesi Botchwey) has said it means that all hands should be on deck; doing things to salvage the economy. If others will not do it, we will do it ourselves. It is true we are facing challenges but we are surviving as a nation and that should push us to move forward. I agree that there is the need to come together and put our shoulders to the wheel”.
Prof. Botchwey is a professor of practice in Development economic at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tuffs University with great practical knowledge in economics and rich experience in lecturing.
He holds an LLB degree from the University of Ghana, LLM from Yale Law School and a doctorate from University of Michigan Law School. He taught at the University of Zambia, University of Dare Salam and University of Ghana.
