I believe you have heard of the idiom, “Do not count your chicken before they’re hatched.” However, as it is expected of them, the opposite is precisely what the Mills/Mahama-led NDC administration did, and that’s why the country is in the current economic situation. The anticipated oil revenue and the Chinese loan put these administrations on high alert like hyenas ready to pounce on unsuspected antelopes.
With the anticipated revenue, the NDC began to deplete the state resources by paying dubious judgment debts. And that was after they had told the whole nation that the state coffers were left empty by the then outgoing Kufuor administration, which prompted ex-President to inquire where the NDC had gotten that money from to pay those debts. Debts must be paid provided they are legitimate. But the circumstances under which these payments were authorized and the speed and urgency with which these monies were paid is what has left well-meaning Ghanaians questioning the mental state of these administration’s officials. So where did the Mills/Mahama government get the monies to pay those debts? This is where their ‘Rob Peter to pay Paul’ concept was effectively utilized. The Attorney General and Justice Department ordered the Finance Ministry to pay the debts. And the Finance Ministry ordered the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to release the funds. This was an order from above and must be obeyed by whoever wanted to keep his or her job. And BoG had to release these monies without delay. However, the bank was using savings from the private sector to pay out these debts. Therefore, down the line, when the private and corporate entities started withdrawing their money, the BoG did not have enough money to service their external debts, a situation that adversely affected the value of the cedi, forcing the international rating agencies to downgrade the country’s credit worthiness. The digging of the economic hole had just been initiated by the payment of the judgment debts!
With the assurance that proceeds from the oil fields, coupled with the Chinese loan, were coming soon, BoG had no time to waste than start doling out monies to the judgment debt beneficiaries.
The $3,000,000,000 Chinese loan had not been paid in full but, UNIPEC Asia, the company responsible for the offtake of the oil was already in full operation while the NDC’s economists, bankers, oil experts, and their army of communicators looked on sheepishly because, after all, it was government’s resources and their cut of the pie had been received. And I understand we are still servicing the loan at the full cost. Sadly, the NDC has no time to think about the economic ramifications of their actions and inactions. Their only method of solving problems is wishing them away, that’s why the NDC has never been able to solve a single problem among the myriad of problems confronting the ordinary Ghanaian.
Then the implementation of the single spine salary structure was introduced with its corruption opportunities in 2010. As usual the structure was seen by the NDC as an avenue to create, loot and share instead of keeping faith with the public servants regarding their electoral promises. Consequently, the payroll of public servants was bloated with ghost names as employees were being migrated onto the structure, leading to a high and unsustainable public wage bill. This information came to light on the heels of the ongoing negotiations between the IMF officials and the government of Ghana. Currently the country is using about 70% of its GDP to pay public sector employees. This phenomenon dug the economic hole further.
You need to be told the truth! The NDC under Mills and Mahama inherited a robust economy from the Kufour government. They inherited an economy with a middle income status but due to their culture of embezzling state funds with impunity, they veered off the sound economic track that Kufuor had laid and went on a highway of robbery. Not even all the signs pointing to an imminent economic disaster gave them a caveat to exit that highway leading to destruction. And so the NDC continued on their destructive path of robbery and reckless spending into the 2012 elections.
The reckless spending of the NDC during the 2012 electioneering period can be said to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The four-wheel automobiles for chiefs, the laptop computers for high school dropouts, and the Hyundai cars for university girls are just a part of the wasteful spending that further deepened the country’s economic woes. Interestingly, when citizens ask the simple question, “How are we in this deep hole,” the government communication team and economists have rather chosen to blame the situation on the opposition political parties. And on some instances, they attribute the situation to world economic crisis. Whichever way, the NDC will not take responsibility of their indiscipline in the way they have handled and continue to handle the country’s resources. Nevertheless, some private citizens and politicians have been generous and given free advice to the current administration, but that has been rebuffed time and again. And so, here we are; the inevitable has happened and our beloved country has been turned into a laughing stock once again. And mind you, the situation could potentially degenerate into a very nasty one if the NDC is bent on continuing borrowing just to fulfill their electoral promises, which is very likely the case. However, citizens must resist this agenda otherwise posterity will judge us harshly. It is very disgusting for a handful of people to hijack and plunder the state’s resources while the majority looks on helplessly. But what is more disgusting is how those who claimed to be righteous, pure and holy and in their despair accused the NPP government of embezzling state resources are the culprits of this heinous act-thievery. This is the height of NDC’s hypocrisy: they are a bunch of self-righteous people in government and tribalism is certainly to blame for all of this.
Immanuel O. Boateng
