Mahama’s government not the worst - Apraku

Dr. Kofi Konadau Apraku, former minister of trade and industry, says though the Ghanaian economy has seen substantial deterioration under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama, his governance style cannot be said to be the worst.

“I can’t say Mahama’s government is the worst government,” he told Bola Ray the host of Starr Chat on Starr 103.5 FM.

According to him, it just cannot be “…because we have had military dictatorship and it has been extra-ordinary bad for our country.”

President Mahama, he said no doubt has initiated some brilliant policies which will be critical to the development of the country in the future, however, “…we have to also look for the short term.”

“…We have to be able to survive in the short term to live in the long run and the economic situation in our country today is so bad… is so bad that I can’t sit here and say that investment in infrastructure, the benefits of it in the short and long term will exceed the benefits [of] providing a strong economy where people can grow up, where people can get jobs,” he added.

Even though president Mahama’s stewardship cannot be described as the most dreadful in the history of the country, the former minister under the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of John Agyekum Kufuor, said it is heading to the abyss.

“...There is a lot of suffering in our country today,” lamented Dr. Apraku.

A recent pre-election survey conducted by pro-democracy and governance group, Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) revealed that about 70% of Ghanaians perceive the country to be heading in the wrong direction as opposed to 24% who believe the contrary.

“The mood of the electorate going into the 2016 polls is broadly negative. Seven in 10 Ghanaians believe that the country is going in the wrong direction and nearly half blame this completely on mostly the government," a senior research fellow at the CDD-Ghana, Daniel Armah-Attoh noted.

However, a narrow majority believed that another political party could do a better job, he added.