Kufuor Admits Playing Politics With Economy

Accra, Nov. 3, Lens -- "This is an election year, and you need this government to come back to pursue its good policies. If we increase the price it would affect the government."

These are the words of Mr. Kufuor when he met with the Employers Association recently at the Castle Osu.

The Association had sought audience with Mr. Kufuor to, among other things, find out from him how his government intends to handle the steep increase in the world market price of crude oil.

In his usual bumbling manner, Mr. Kufuor admitted that he and members of his government are afraid that by increasing fuel prices the people would vote them out.

The surprising thing about this admission by Mr. Kufuor is that in 2000, he was in the forefront of an orchestrated attack on the Rawlings/Mills led NDC administration for refusing to pass on the increase in the world market price of fuel to the Ghanaian consumer.

Mr. Kufuor and his men and women lost no opportunity to accuse the NDC of lacking the political will to take tough decisions and "doing politics" with the economy.

When in 2001 Mr. Kufuor's regime inflicted an unprecedented 300% increase in fuel prices on the Ghanaian people, the NPP propaganda machinery and apologists of the Kufuor regime went into overdrive portraying Mr. Kufuor and his regime as a government that would not buck at taking tough decision on the economy. Mr. Kufuor himself was on record telling Ghanaians that he was prepared to "bite the bullet" and take hard decisions.

Confronted with a similar situation as the NDC faced in 2000, Mr. Kufuor and his people have beaten a fast retreat from their publicly postulated positions, clearly demonstrating that all those talk were nothing but cheap propaganda.