Kufuor and Nkrumah are at par… - Economist

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor was flayed quite recently and described as a hypocrite for seeking to link the current hardship and economic woes to the recent daring act by Armed Robbers Association of Ghana (ARAG) to demand monies from residents of Agape, a suburb of Accra for protection.

Mr Kufuor claimed the current economic hardship in Ghana has left Ghanaians “gnashing”.

“Everywhere people are gnashing their teeth; they don’t sleep well because, as the dawn breaks on us, we wonder where we are going to get the chop money for our families…….there’s so much unemployment. Even when we are able to take our children through school and they pass successfully they do not know where to get employment…” JAK said.

The former president also argued that the recent letter written by the Armed Robbers Association of Ghana (ARAG) to the residents of Agape in Accra is because of the economic hardship and massive unemployment in the country.

But Deputy Communication Director of Convention People’s Party (CPP) Asani Tanoh, who led the verbal attack, believes the former president had no right to harshly criticize the Mahama-led administration since he (Kufuor) performed abysmally during his term in office.

He opined on HotFM that Kufuor’s government did not fare any better than the current administration to warrant any criticism directed at the latter from the former.

“….If Ex-President Kufuor is saying these things in expectation that the public will laud him and the NPP for managing the economy well when they were in power, then he is making an obvious mistake….because there’s not much difference between these two parties (NDC & NPP)…they both churned out the same ideologies that did not help move the country forward… I find Kufuor’s comment on Ghana’s economy highly hypocritical,” he said.

However, an Economist and Social Commentator, Charles Owusu Boakye, speaking on the same platform gave former President Kufuor thumps up for his remarks saying he (Kufuor) is the best to criticize the current NDC administration because he managed the economy to a point where the cedi was almost running shoulder-to-shoulder with the dollar.

He pointed out that though former President Kufuor was not an angel to have recorded no flaws in his administration, he (Kufuor) listened to sound counsel and surrounded himself with the right manner of people to move the country forward.

He added that former President Kufuor and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah are almost on the same pedigree in terms of achieving remarkable developmental progress, adding that the availability of resources to both was the only distinctive factor between them.

“……President Kufuor is not an angel, but if you compare him to Kwame Nkrumah then they are almost on the same pedigree; the biggest difference is that Nkrumah had the resources to develop the country, whereas Kufuor had virtually no resources to start with,” he opined.