Thompson?s economics is flawed - A K Agyei.

Writing in his regular column My Concerns, Dr A K Agyei has described Dr Nii Moi Thompson?s description of the Kufuor administration, in a speech marking Ghana?s 49th Independence Anniversary, as ?bereft of vision,? having ?traded away their dignity for beggary, utterly lack self-confidence,? in light of the country?s economic situation, as smacking of unfairness, especially when such a comparison is made against the first president of the Republic, Kwame Nkrumah.

But in a quick response, Dr Nii Moi Thompson has described Dr Agyei?s article as ?unfair? and the figures used in buttressing his arguments as ?wild.? ?In 1951 Nkrumah inherited about $200 million in foreign exchange reserves, which in today?s money is at least $10 billion, while Kufuor found a measly $300 million in our coffers in January 2001. Further, the average world-market cocoa price over the period from 1951 to 1965 was about $1000 ($50,000 in today?s money) per tonne, which means that, for an average annual cocoa production of about 100,000 tonnes, Nkrumah was raking in about $5 billion (in today?s money) a year in foreign exchange. Dr Nii Moi Thompson should compare that to the $1 billion we have been earning annually over the past five years from cocoa and tell us whether Kufuor is really a lucky man, given the fact that we were about six million then and are about 20 million now,? Dr Agyei writes.

The economist had criticised some of the expensive projects undertaken by government in the midst of widespread poverty in rural Ghana, especially.