Akufo-Addo and Bawumia have delivered hell when they promised Ghanaians heaven   

The Minority in Parliament has said the government and the NPP have gone down as the worst-performing governments in the history of Ghana.

Leader of the Caucus, Dr. Cassie Ato Forson, says although the government promised to deliver leadership that will help transform the lives of the people, it has done the opposite.

In his concluding remarks on the debate on the State of the Nation Address presented by the President recently, he said “Never in the history of Ghana was a government so hyped up, with massive goodwill and huge fiscal space enough to transform our country as this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.

Yet, this government and the NPP have gone down as the worst-performing government in the history of Ghana!

Mr Speaker, I can say without any doubt that President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia who promised to transform Ghana within 18 months have been a monumental failure. They promised heaven but delivered hell!”

He said “Mr Speaker, deep down the hearts of members of the NPP, including my colleagues opposite, they accept that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has been an unmitigated disaster!

Yet, each time President Akufo-Addo gets the opportunity to tell the people of Ghana about how he and his government got us into this mess, he chooses to bury his head in the sand, like the proverbial ostrich.”

He noted that the current administration has failed to recognise their failure and rather living in denial of the economic crisis they have created.

“President Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia pretend not to see the mess that they have created. They still live in a bubble of denial over the true state of Ghana today.

Rt. Hon. Speaker, Parliament remains a House of record, and the record must reflect nothing but the true state of our nation. Our reality today stands in sharp contrast with the glossy picture the President depicted to the people of Ghana.

Mr. Speaker, we owe it a duty to inform the people of Ghana whom we swore to serve faithfully and diligently, about the true state of our nation.”

Read the full statement below

THE AKUFO-ADDO/BAWUMIA NPP GOVERNMENT SCORECARD:

A PRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT ON MONDAY, 11^TH MARCH, 2024, BY THE MINORITY LEADER,

HON. CASSIEL ATO FORSON (Ph.D),

ON THE TRUE STATE OF THE NATION

1.  Thank you, Rt. Hon. Speaker, for this opportunity to contribute to the debate on the message on the State of the Nation.

•  The message on the state of the nation, Mr Speaker, is not a cursory annual ritual, simply because it is a constitutional imperative enshrined in our Fourth Republican Constitution.

•  Instead, it is an occasion for the President to render a fair and honest account of his stewardship to the good people of Ghana through their elected representatives.

•  Such an account must be based on deep and sober reflections on where this government took our nation from, what we have been through, and where we are headed as a nation.

•  Anything short of an accurate and truthful report on Ghana’s economy, unemployment crisis, massive uncontrolled corruption, government-sponsored galamsey epidemic (in the words of Prof. Frimpong-Boateng), poor governance, insecurity, food insecurity and the Akosombo Dam spillage should not qualify as an address on the state of the nation.

•  Mr. Speaker, needless to say that President Akufo-Addo’s address failed this basic litmus test. As the Hon. Haruna Iddrisu rightly observed, the President merely came to this House to launch the Bawumia campaign.

•  Never in the history of Ghana was a government so hyped up, with massive goodwill and huge fiscal space enough to transform our country as this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.

•  Yet, this government and the NPP have gone down as the worst performing government in the history of Ghana!

•  Mr Speaker, I can say without any doubt that President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia who promised to transform Ghana within 18 months have been a monumental failure. They promised heaven but delivered hell!

1.  Mr Speaker, deep down the hearts of members of the NPP, including my colleagues opposite, they accept that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has been an unmitigated disaster!

1.  Yet, each time President Akufo-Addo gets the opportunity to tell the people of Ghana about how he and his government got us into this mess, he chooses to bury his head in the sand, like the proverbial ostrich.

1. President Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia pretend not to see the mess that they have created. They still live in a bubble of denial over the true state of Ghana today.

1. Rt. Hon. Speaker, Parliament remains a House of record, and the record must reflect nothing but the true state of our nation. Our reality today stands in sharp contrast with the glossy picture the President depicted to the people of Ghana.

1.  Mr. Speaker, we owe it a duty to inform the people of Ghana whom we swore to serve faithfully and diligently, about the true state of our nation. 

1.  This presentation is therefore a scorecard of the seven years of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government.

1. This, Mr Speaker, is the true state of our nation!

1.  Mr Speaker, those who held various lectures on textbook management of the economy have been in charge of Ghana’s economy for the last seven years.

1.  Despite “resolving” all issues of the economy at those lectures, the reality is that the economy has collapsed on the watch of Dr. Bawumia, the chief lecturer.

1.  To say this government’s record has been poor and abysmal is a gross understatement.

•  May I, with your kind permission, Mr Speaker, walk this House through the indicators of what the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government inherited from the Mahama NDC administration and where we are today.

INDICATORS	2016	2023
Public debt % of GDP	55.6%	Over 100%
Exchange GHS/US$	3.8	11.88 (currently over 13)
Inflation	15.40%	Over 40% (2023 average)
Unemployment	8.40%	14.70%
Youth Unemployment	21.20%	32.80%
Lending rate	28.10%	33.75% (40% on average)
T-bill rate (364-day)	22.1	33% (Dec 2023 average)

• Mr Speaker, this explains why businesses are folding up left, right and center. Under these outrageously high interest rate regime, it is almost impossible for bussinesses to access financing.

• This is the most resourced government ever in the history of our country.

• Mr Speaker, this government, in seven years, has received over GHS925 billion, equivalent to US$134.4 billion, excluding government grants.

*Figures in billions

• Mr Speaker, the question is “na sika no wↄ hi”? What exactly have they used the money for?

•  Mr. Speaker, numbers don’t lie! The numbers clearly make the point that this government and its economic whizz kid and Chairman of the Economic mis-Management Team have been a terrible disaster; they have failed bigly!

•  The goodwill and the resources that this government has received notwithstanding, its performance has been nothing but despicable.

•  Rt Hon. Speaker,

1. the economy has collapsed on their watch.
   1. the exchange rate is out of the roof.
   1. lending rates are extremely high.
   1. business confidence is at an all-time low.
   1. youth unemployment has become a national security risk.
   1. inflation is still high.
   1. Shrinkflation, where companies keep their prices the same but give you less of their product, is the order of the day.
   1. food inflation is alarming.

• This, Mr Speaker, is the true state of our nation!

• These are important issues that we must all be concerned about.
• Rt. Hon. Speaker, more and more businesses are leaving Ghana as a result of the poor business environment.

• Increasingly, captains of industry are exploring other places to relocate their businesses from Ghana as a result of the burdensome and stagnating policies of this government.

• Sad to say, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast and other places in the sub-region are fast becoming destinations of choice for businesses that are moving out of Ghana.

• Mr Speaker, I am sad to point out that the almighty BIC, the pen-producing company, has stopped producing its pens in Ghana. It has relocated its production to Ivory Coast.

• By relocating BIC pen’s production to Ivory Coast, we have exported those jobs. This is bad news for Ghanaian employees!

• Again, Mr Speaker, Unilever Ghana, which has for a very long time been producing its famous Lipton tea in Ghana, has stopped its tea production here. Unilever has relocated its tea production to Nigeria.
• We have lost jobs by exporting the Lipton tea production to Nigeria. This is bad news for Ghanaian employees!

•  Again, Mr Speaker, Unilever Ghana has not been able to commence its Pepsodent production in Ghana after President Akufo-Addo commissioned the plant, five years ago. This is as a result of the worsening business environment.

•  The poor outcome of this government and its Economic Management Team is there for all to see. Many of our people have lost hope in the current managers of the economy.

• The unemployment situation in our country is at crisis point. Only 11.3 million out of our population of 33 million are in some form of employment. This translate to two out of every three Ghanaians being jobless.

• Mr Speaker, the high cost of living has become a nightmare for many people. This has significantly deteriorated following the depreciation in the value of the Cedi and high level of inflation, especially food inflation.

•  Sadly, a recent World Bank report on Food Security released on 13^th November 2023, cites Ghana among the top 5 countries with the highest food inflation in the world. Many families in Ghana today struggle to put food on the table.

•  This is consistent with another sad report on food insecurity published by the Ghana Statistical Service last week which revealed that over 8.4 million Ghanaians went a day without food. This represents about 25% of the Ghanaian population. 

• Mr Speaker, times are hard! In fact, very hard.

•  The price of kenkey has not just gone up but also the size has reduced, a typical example of inflation and shrinkflation.

• Now, kenkey sellers have threatened to sell their pepper and shito separately from the kenkey. This will be the first time in the history of our nation that kenkey vendors will be selling kenkey and pepper at separate prices.

•  This, Mr Speaker, is the true state of our nation!
•  How are members of this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government able to look Ghanaians in the face and claim a superior record of economic management when the indicators, the facts and the reality prove otherwise?

•  Increasingly, the reality of Ghanaians today proves that President John Mahama was a visionary leader and a nation-builder.
•  Mr Speaker, you recall the infamous “if the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you”. Today, one of the major sources of concern for many Ghanaians is the exchange rate.

•  Yet those who gave lectures on the so-called Restoring the Value of the Cedi and claimed to have the magic wand to fix the exchange rate have gone mute on the economy.

• After hyping his questionable “competence” and readiness to get a handle on the exchange rate, he has fled from the economy.

•  Alhaji Bawumia would rather speak on any subject matter other than the economy. He has abandoned his so-called claim of superior knowledge on management of the economy.
• Mr Speaker, he could not live up to the hype. The exchange rate has exposed him bigly.

• The confidence in the banking and financial sector is gone and about nine(9) commercial banks continue to wobble on their feet. This is not the healthy banking and financial sector that this government promised the people of Ghana.

•  This, Mr Speaker, is the true state of our nation!

• Mr Speaker, after marshalling its numbers in Parliament and urging them to fight tooth and nail to pass the regressive, punitive, draconian and insensitive taxes, the key architect behind the taxes has indicated his readiness to abolish these same taxes in the future.

• Our Caucus, the NDC Minority group, resisted these draconian taxes and collectively voted against them. We did so because businesses and people are heavily burdened through taxes by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.

• After bulldozing its way through with these taxes in Parliament, the government has finally come around to appreciate the NDC’s opposition to these taxes. This is a huge vindication of the Minority’s position.

• On behalf of the NDC Minority Caucus, I am serving notice that we will bring a Private Member’s Bill to remove these taxes, including e-levy, emission tax and betting tax.

•  The government has finally agreed with us to abolish these taxes, except that while Dr Bawumia wants that done in the future, the NDC Minority Caucus wants the removal of the taxes now!

• Mr Speaker, President Akufo-Addo’s claim that his government is on course to achieve universal access to electricity is wishful thinking.

• This Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government has barely managed to expand electricity access by 5.6% in seven years, meaning an average of 0.8% per year.

• To achieve universal access, they must expand electricity by about 11.5%. This is just not possible in nine months.
• The NDC government inherited electricity coverage of 60.5% in 2009. In eight years, the Mills/Mahama/NDC administration increased access to electricity to 83.24%.

• The NDC expanded electricity access by a significant 22.74%, a record that remains unmatched, while the NPP has added a paltry 5.6% so far.

• Mr. Speaker, Ghana’s historical challenge with stable electricity supply was comprehensively resolved by President John Mahama in December 2015.

• Unfortunately, today, dumsor is back under this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.

• Households and businesses are experiencing sustained power outages. GRIDco has been shedding in excess of 450 megawatts of power each day.

• Yet, the government is not even bold to make an admission of the seriousness of the challenges of the power sector, let alone publish a timetable to help Ghanaians plan their lives. Mr Speaker, who does not know that dumsor is back?

• Having inherited almost 5,000 megawatts of generation capacity, the $1 billion Atuabo Gas processing plant, the ENI/Sankofa gas field, the Energy Sector Levies Act.

•  This Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government owes in excess of $1.5 billion to Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

• Mr Speaker, the huge, dedicated inflows from the Energy Sector Levies Act (ESLA), which President John Mahama left behind to pay down all the legacy debts in the energy sector have been wasted by this government.

• The Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has resorted to a fire-fighting strategy, deliberately kicking the can down the road for the next NDC government to inherit its huge indebtedness to the IPPs.

• The reality, Mr Speaker, is that this crippling indebtedness and the mess in the power sector, created by the Akufo Addo/Bawumia government, remains the biggest threat to the Ghanaian economy.

•  Rt. Hon. Speaker, the state of education under this government is chaotic. No government has so mismanaged and mishandled Ghana’s educational sector and, in the process, toyed with the future of our children as this government.

• This government has prioritised shallow populism, vindictiveness, and short-term political gain in the management of the education sector. It has systematically reversed most of the gains chalked by successive governments.

•   Mr Speaker, basic schools in the country have gone six years without curriculum-based textbooks. The neglect of basic education, the very foundation of human development, has over the years left experts worried about the future of our children.

•  Apart from the absence of textbooks, capitation grant has been in arrears for several years. This grant is used to procure essential supplies such as chalk, registers, etc.

•  Rt. Hon. Speaker, the IMF recently delivered a damning verdict on this NPP government’s haphazard implementation of its flagship Free SHS, when it observed that even though access had increased, learning outcomes have been poor.

• Five years after introducing a new curriculum, this government has not provided Senior High Schools with the required textbooks.

•  Mr. Speaker, this is the true state of our nation!

•  Rt. Hon. Speaker, I now turn my attention to the state of agriculture, and here too, the story is no different.

•  The Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government told us that it was Planting for Food and Jobs, little did we know it was planting for food insecurity, inflation and joblessness.

•  This is in spite of the fact that this government  has spent billions of Ghana cedis on agriculture, sufficient to completely transform the sector. But alas, the outcome is tragic!

• Mr Speaker, Ghana today ranks among the top five countries in the world with the highest food inflation. Food prices continue to rise on a daily basis, amid a looming threat of food insecurity.

•  A recent trip to the Mallam Atta market, the favourite shopping grounds for Alhaji Bawumia, revealed the following:

• A bag of maize which sold for GHS170 in 2016, now sells at GHS1,020.

• A tuber of yam which sold for GHS5 in 2016 now sells at GHS25.

• An olonka of gari which sold for GHS6 in 2016, now goes for GHS40.   

• A cup of beans which sold for GHS1.50 pesewas in 2016 is now going for GHS10.

• A bucket of onions which sold for GHS15 in 2016 is today going for GHS75.

• A bag of sachet water which sold for GHS1.50 pesewas is today being sold for GHS11.

• 1 kilogramme of Gino rice which sold for GHS6 is today being sold for GHS40.

• A bar of key soap which sold for GHS4 is today being sold for GHS25.

• A sack of Kokonte which sold for GHS200 in 2016, is today being sold for GHS920.

• A crate of eggs which sold for GHS12 in 2016 is GHS65 today.

• And even President Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia’s favourite Kalypo which was just GHS 0.50 in 2016, now sells for GHS4.

•  In most cases, prices of everyday household staples have increased by over 500%. A recent World Bank report revealed that about 4 million Ghanaians are food insecure. Mr Speaker, this is the true state of our nation!

•  The dreadful performance of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government is evident in many ways. For example, the government has successfully collapsed almost all State-Owned Enterprises.

•  The once successful Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), which for years laid the golden eggs for the state, has been run aground. Since 2017, when President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia took over, Cocobod has been recording huge losses.

       LOSSES RECORDED BY COCOBOD

YEAR	LOSS RECORDED (GHS)
2017	395 million
2018	78.2 million
2019	320.6 million
2020	426 million
2021	2.4 billion
2022	3.2 billion
2023	4.2 billion
2024 (Projected)	2.6 billion
TOTAL	13.62 billion

• As a result of the mismanagement, Cocobod recently struggled to raise an annual cocoa syndicated loan of $800 million at a record interest rate of 8%.

•  Mr. Speaker, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government inherited annual cocoa production of 969,000 metric tonnes at the end of the 2016/2017 crop season.

• Through bad policies, gross mismanagement, and rampant corruption at Cocobod, this NPP government reduced annual cocoa yield to a little over 500,000 metric tonnes in the 2022/2023 cocoa season.

•  A recent Reuters report has projected cocoa production to drop further to 492,000 metric tonnes in the 2023/2024 crop season. This is about half the production level the John Mahama government recorded in 2016.

•  The state of Cocobod today epitomises the toxic mix of corruption and reckless mismanagement that this NPP government has served Ghanaians in every facet of the economy.

• Whereas the average expenditure on fertilizers and insecticides have increased astronomically, production continues to drop drastically.

• Over the eight (8) years of the Mills/Mahama NDC government, average expenditure on fertilizer and chemicals was GHS296 million per annum.

• This expenditure has increased astronomically to about GHS2 billion per annum under President Akufo-Addo.

•  Mr Speaker, Cocobod has been reduced to a procurement entity for questionable contracts.

•  A recent audit of contracts awarded under this government revealed that 87% of cocoa roads were sole-sourced, contrary to its promise.

1.   Quiet apart from the procurement breaches, these sole-sourced contracts were also inflated by 100%.

1. Interestingly, Vice President Bawumia’s brother and other relatives were major beneficiaries of this corrupt practice.

1.  Cocobod now relies on private licensed buying companies to pre-finance cocoa purchases, while the once viable state-owned Produce Buying Company (PBC) has gone bankrupt.

1. This, Mr Speaker, is the true state of our nation!

1.  The situation is not particularly different in many other State-Owned Enterprises, including Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO), Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), Volta River Authority (VRA), National Buffer Stock Company, GIHOC Distilleries, STC and Ghana Airport Company Limited. All of them are struggling!

1.  The health of the Central Bank is no different. The Bank of Ghana is now bankrupt and exists merely in name. In 2022, the Central Bank recorded a colossal loss of over GHS60.8 billion and a negative equity of over GHS55 billion.

1.  The Governor of the Bank of Ghana and his two deputies illegally and excessively printed money to finance government’s over-bloated expenditures.

1. Mr Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana and his two deputies, without recourse to Parliament, wrote off about GHS 48.4 billion of government debt.

1. These are the cardinal sins for which the Governor and his two deputies must be held accountable, however long it takes.

1. Rt. Hon. Speaker, good governance and the rule of law are equally at their lowest ebb in the history of the Fourth Republic. The Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has championed the most unresponsive and insensitive governance in the history of Ghana.

1. Gone are the days when Presidents operated an open-door policy and subjected themselves to transparency and accountability by the media through Presidential press encounters.

1. In the life of this government, Presidential townhall meetings have become a thing of the past. This has effectively doomed any opportunity for citizens to hold the government accountable.

1. Mr Speaker, President Akufo-Addo’s recent comments and posturing towards the legitimate concerns and demands of Ghanaians, including traditional rulers, are unpresidential and most unfortunate.

1.  First, it was the President’s tactless response to the Chief of Aflao, Togbui Amenya Fiti V, when he called on him to see to the completion of the abandoned Aflao Community Senior High School.

1. In a rather bizarre and unpresidential response, President Akufo-Addo told the chief to go ahead and complete the school himself, if he was so minded.

1.  As if that was not appalling enough, the President taunted voters in Kwabre East in the Ashanti Region, a stronghold of the NPP, when they demanded that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government take steps to construct their bad roads.

1. Shockingly, President Akufo-Addo told them to go ahead and vote the NPP out of office if they were displeased with the performance of his government.

1. When President Akufo-Addo reluctantly visited the victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage at Mepe last year, he literally told them that it was a waste of his time considering that they did not vote for him and his party.

1. Again, not too long, without any provocation, President Akufo-Addo directed his unpresidential remarks at the chiefs and people of Ekumfi in the Central Region.

1.  He told the chiefs and people of Ekumfi that his government neglected them and halted development projects in that area because they voted against his party’s Member of Parliament in the last general elections. Where did we go wrong, Mr. President?

1. Mr. Speaker, some Ghanaians have justifiably called on this House to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Akufo-Addo for undermining his oath of office and the 1992 Constitution, in the distribution of the national cake.

1. Rt. Hon. Speaker, media freedoms have equally not been spared in the last seven years. The media has come under the worst crackdown in the Fourth Republic, as state-sponsored attacks on journalists and raids on media houses continue.

1. The recent Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders highlighted Ghana’s decline in press freedom on the watch of President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia.

1. While Ghana ranked 2^nd in Africa and 26^th in the world on the Press Freedom Index in 2016, our dear country now ranks 9^th in Africa and 62^nd in the world in 2023.
2. As we approach the 2024 general elections, the safety of journalists remains a major concern.

1. Mr. Speaker, the corruption scorecard of this Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government is as terrible as it can get. In fact, the evidence as supported by public perception and reality bears us out. As the Catholic Bishops Conference put it, there is “massive uncontrolled corruption”.

1. Mr. Speaker, Ghana has declined on the Global Rule of Law Index from a rank of 34 in 2016 to 61 in 2023. In this government, corruption and impunity have taken the place of rule of law.

1. Rather than fight corruption head on as they promised, President Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia have fought, silenced and defeated many corruption fighters.

1. Rather than make corruption a high-risk venture for government officials, they have made the fight against corruption a high-risk activity for anti-corruption crusaders.

1.  This, Mr. Speaker, is the true state of our nation!

1.   Mr Speaker, new scandals emerge from people in this government daily.

1. Mr Speaker, under the guise of a so-called revenue assurance, the reckless and wasteful Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government is giving $100 million a year to its crony business in the Ministry of Finance-induced Ghana Revenue Authority-Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (GRA-SML) contract for 10 continuous years, for no work done.

1. Last year, we witnessed arguably the biggest man-made disaster to ever befall our nation, as a result of the Akosombo Dam spillage.

1. Many months on, there has been no official assistance from the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government to the affected people of this monstrous disaster.

1. In all the affected places, it has taken the instrumentality of Members of Parliament and the generosity of ordinary Ghanaians, businesses and groups to keep some of these communities going.

1.  The affected communities and regions have yet to recover from this disaster.
2. Yet, the disaster did not find expression in President Akufo-Addo’s State of the Nation Address.

1. Mr Speaker, this is unacceptable, this is insensitive, and this is heartless.

1. The Legacy of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has been:

1. To overborrow

• This government will be remembered for destroying the indigenous banks.

• This government will be remembered for domestic and international haircuts.

• This government will be remembered for destroying many Ghanaian families through its dreadful economic policies.
• Mr. Speaker, this is the true state of our nation:

1. A bankrupt economy
2. Default (Yentumi ntua) economy
3. Haircut economy
4. Debt-riddled economy
5. Over tax economy
6. High inflationary economy
7. High food inflation economy
8. A shrinkflation economy
9. High monetary policy rate economy
10. High lending rate economy
11. High Unemployment economy
12. Extremely High youth unemployment economy
13. Misery (ahonkyer3) economy
14. A collapsed  state-owned enterprises economy
15. A collapsed cocoa sector economy
16. Massive uncontrolled corruption economy

1. Mr. Speaker, this is the true state of our nation!

1. I thank you, Mr Speaker.