My take on president's self appraisal to the people tour

I wish to first of all start by humbly asking Mr. President and his Communication Team if they truly know the meaning of "ACCOUNTING"?

To clear the doubt, the Business Dictionary defines Accounting as "a systematic process of identifying, recording, measuring, classifying, verifying, summarizing, interpreting and communicating financial information. It reveals profit or loss for a given period, and the value and nature of a firm's assets (Resources), liabilities and owners' equity and how those Resources are used for the Betterment of that firm.

Accounting provides information on the following:

1. Resources available to a firm (income received)

2. The means employed to manage those resources, and

3. The results achieved through their use.

And to the layman on the Street "ACCOUNTING" is defined as means and ways employed to gather income (money) and the manner & ways those income (monies) are put to judicious use for the benefit of the individual, company or people (country).

To go by both definitions they all talked about receiving income (monies) and how those incomes are spent to the benefit of the entire populace.

So why is John Mahama and his NDC administration telling Ghanaians how they have spent our monies without letting us know how much they have received as income. If we are to go by these definitions of ACCOUNTING, then they have been economical with the truth, in other words they are telling us lies.

The President would have done himself a great favor had he told Ghanaians how much he and his NDC administration has been able to rake-in as revenue (money) so that Ghanaians will be in a good position to tell by themselves as to whether those monies have been used prudently or not.

While other presidents like Barrack Obama, Alhassan Outara etc., are working hard for the betterment of their citizens, our president (John Mahama) has used more than three working months to carry lies and propaganda on his head to distribute them from region to region in the name of “Accounting to the People”.

If indeed he did 50% of what he is claiming he has done, Ghanaians needed nobody to tell us that John Mahama has performed creditably well. His works would have spoken for itself. Truly they say empty barrels makes the most noise.

He resumed office to meet a whole lot of documents awaiting his attention as president. This was one reason we saw it unnecessary for a whole president of a nation like Ghana to be going around commissioning boreholes, poly tanks, 1 km roads, abattoirs, schools, day care centers etc., which could have been done by MCES, DCES and Assembly members.

The saddest of it was that John Mahama knows he has a non-working Vice President (Kwesi Amisah Arthur) who isn't capable of taking care of progressive issues for the nation but he still embarked on this self-appraisal mission.

The reason why we (Ghanaians) see this so called "Accounting to the People Tour" as unnecessary and self-praising tour is that; the country Ghana as we speak today is on its knees bleeding to death as a result of mismanagement, corruption, bad policies, incompetence etc. of the John Mahama & NDC administration. Ghanaians would have appreciated it far better if John Mahama had concentrated on reducing the mismanagement, wicked policies, corruption etc.

So far, following John Mahama’s “Accounting to the People Tour”, I don't remember JM telling even one District he visited how much he and his NDC administration has received in terms of income (both taxes & borrowed funds).

Available records from the finance ministry and other government agencies show that the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress government has had access to a massive flow of resources in the last seven years than any other government in the past. Taxes, loans and oil revenues alone amount to an inflow of some GHC 200 billion within that period.

Under the eight years of the previous Kuffuor-led New Patriotic Party government, from 2001-2008, government revenue from taxes and loans amounted to some GHC 20.00 billion.

This means in the last seven years, the NDC government has had, in nominal terms received at least 10 times the resources the NPP had in eight years with virtually nothing to show for it.

Notwithstanding all these massive inflow of resources in terms of taxes revenue, loans, and revenue from gold, cocoa and oil exports amongst others, public finances are in such a bad state to the extent that we had to seek an IMF bailout. That is the record of the last seven budgets of this NDC government.

Why is John Mahama not telling Ghanaians all this unfortunate development if he indeed means to account to Ghanaians but only concentrating on the lip services he is paying to infrastructural development where he claims has chopped almost all the resources he and his NDC administration has raked-in as revenue.

To be charitable with this John Mahama administration vis-a-vis this unfortunate development, it is a record of fantastic failure on the part on this NDC administration.

John Mahama accounting to the people tour was just a mockery of the People of Ghana, especially Mamprugu in particular. Why do I say this?, not even one single project was built, commissioned and handed over by John Mahama administration to the people of Mamprugu. Even with all this astronomical inflow of revenue (money) and the shouting from the rooftops by this John Mahama administration of the incredible sinking of resources into the development of both infrastructural Projects.

As the Accounting to the People (JM self-appraisal) tour hit the three Northern Regions (Upper East, Upper West & Northern region), northerners were eagerly waiting for their kinsman (John Mahama) and his NDC administration to account to us how they have generated and used SADA (Savanna Accelerated Development Authority) monies.

To our utmost disappointment and dismay, we were never told anything as far as SADA is concern. Under this poverty alleviation project called SADA, millions of dollars were misappropriated and siphoned from the project kitty. As a result of this, SADA has now becomes a vehicle through which our Northerners have been impoverished. Up to date, nobody is held accountable for those monies.

A classic example is the guinea fowl & tree planting projects where unbelievable amount of monies were sunk into those ghost projects and not even a single tree or guinea fowl can be shown for it. The saddest part of the sad SADA story is that all this unfortunate revelations happen under a northern president, who should have known how the ordinary poor northerner is suffering down here.

The people who wish SADA succeeds have been Northerners including the very president under whose watch we have retrogressed as a nation and as Northerners in particular.

In the light of all these unfortunate revelations, I can confidently without any iota of doubt stick-out my neck and say that Mamprugu has not received it fair share of the national cake under almost eight years of this NDC administration, No wonder John Mahama couldn't (to borrow his own word) account to the People of Mamprugu but rather resorted to mentioning Tamale Teaching hospital, Wa-Fofulso road, Tamale Polytechnic etc.

When he “accounted” to the people of Mamprugu land, let no one imply that I said all these are not achievements, but Northerners for that matter Mamprugu need Good roads, better healthcare facilities, vibrant and working NHIS, well-functioning SADA (Savanna Accelerated Development Authority).

To end with, a conclusion can be drawn that John Mahama wasn't accounting (in the true meaning of the word) to Ghanaians but was rather playing to the galleries and doing propaganda.