Economy is not being properly managed -Mahama

The presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has challenged the Akufo-Addo-led government to provide concrete means by which the citizens will survive than going the easy way of providing freebies for them.

According to Mr Mahama, as a government, it was incumbent on you to provide jobs for the people in order to empower them be able to sustain themselves without relying on free stuff.   “Because, as a President, your principal duty is the prosperity of the people, and the people can only prosper when they have jobs,” he urged.

This statement comes on the back of the decision taken by President Akufo-Addo to provide free water and electricity to Ghanaians in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Addressing two road construction associations last Friday in Accra, he argued that no government develops a country by prioritising consumption, and underscored the need to invest money in the productive sectors.

“And the productive sectors will create jobs, and the jobs will create prosperity for the people. But, if you say everybody should sit home, you will give everything free, free this, free that; no country will develop like that. You just assure the people of jobs. If the people are working and they are making money, what do they want free for, if they can afford to pay,” he stated.

To him, it makes no sense if he is invited to have a competition on social interventions, adding that social interventions are consumption, throwing a challenge: “They should rather call me; let have a competition on who invested in the real sector than the other.

“We were doing 4.7 percent of GDP investment in the real sector. Today, they (government) can hardly achieve three percent. It is only when you invest in the real sector that an economy develops. But I think Ghanaians are the better judges.”

He condemned the government for collapsing some businesses because they were perceived to be affiliated to the NDC, a decision that hurt the nation by worsening the unemployment situation.

“So, if my political opponent has a company and he is employing 500 people, he is doing me a favour, because if his company collapses, those people will be on the streets. I have said that I will create jobs for young people to get work to do.

“So why would I be destroying business of my political opponent so that those people will be unemployed.  Instead, support and sustain their businesses, so that they can employ more people,” he added.

He argued that businesses had been destroyed and economic activities come to a standstill, because of political prejudice and government prioritising consumption.

The former president alleged that the government was struggling to get GH¢22 billion to pay depositors who lost their money, stating: “You think that we did not know the problems of the banks when we were in government. We knew the implications of shutting them down. You come to meet a problem, you panic, you shutdown.”

Mr Mahama was so convinced that some of the banks were shut-down for political reasons, whilst others failed because the government refused its financial obligations to contractors who had taken loans from these banks, hence, could not meet the GH¢400 million capital reserve imposed by the Bank of Ghana.

He said because of the negative economic actions taken by the Akufo-Addo government, Ghanaians who thought that they had life long careers have been turned into Uber drivers, Waakye sellers and Khebab grillers, stressing “it is a very sad story.”

The NDC flagbearer accused the government of only churning out what it believes is propaganda when that is not the reality on the ground. “This government has failed. The economy is in dire straits than it has ever been in the history of Ghana. The debt is huge. And the tragedy is today [Friday] they are in Parliament, three months to an election, they want to go and borrow half a billion dollars. And you know the tragedy, our gold royalties that have been there since Nkrumah’s time, every gold mining companies here, the government of Ghana owns 10% shares in that company. They are mortgaging that our 10% shares to a company to borrow 500 million before elections,” he lamented.

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