Why Ghana is where she is

Incompetence, nepotism, fabrication, greediness, self-centeredness, ignorance, etc

Personally, I don’t know of any cogent reason which will inform a government striving to meet the aspirations of the majority of the people would opt for the closure of tollbooths, which rake into its financial vault a lot of revenue.

I cringed when I heard about that move, especially, the rambo style in which the roads and highways minister authorised the closure of the same right after that incompetent finance minister finished reading the budget.

Firstly, widening the tax basket encompasses a lot of direct and indirect measures. One such measure is to ensuring that revenues from within become a vital component towards the such drive. Both local and foreign vehicles plying on our roads are a source of revenue through the tollbooths. And so, for any person to have thought of closing them, becomes unrealistically ineptitude, least said.

Secondly, this government had already mobilized some funds through that and should have known better that, half a loaf is better than none, going forward with revenue mobilisation. How then could they have had to expunge it, knowing how much they usually made from them?

Thirdly, imagine a government that has borrowed recklessly almost GHC 241 billion, of which Euro-bond alone is over $10 billion is now chasing $3 billion from the IMF to revive an economy which themselves have collapsed in just six years.

So bizarre is the fact that even COVID-19 which has brought to the government chest funds of over GHC 30 billion is now blaming it for their incompetence over the management of the economy. Is this not sickening?

Also, so annoying is the fact that the President himself had to give an excuse that, smaller economies have been hit by Covid and Russia and Ukraine war more than the larger ones.

Mr. President, Togo, your immediate next-door neighbour is not gone to IMF. So why are you saying that smaller economies have been hit more by Covid and Russia and Ukraine war?

Sack your incompetent finance minister who only thinks about borrowing for consumption.

Let no one thinks that IMF will resurrect this collapsed economy when the President and officials of this government continue with their recklessness on expenditures.

Two internal reasons why the NPP government is going to the IMF: the energy agreement and the banking sector clean-up exercise.

Why an energy agreement? The agreement that the NDC government entered into was 60 months period so that Ghana would take over the Ameri Power Plant thereafter. This plant came in as an emergency power plant to fix Dumsor. And so if this agreement was that bad, why did the NPP government extend the agreement period to 70 months instead of the original 60 months the NDC government had signed?

If you answer this question well, also ask yourself why the former energy minister was fired with respect to the renegotiation of the same deal. Was there the smell of hearings?

Ameri then signed an agreement with Ghana in which Ghana would pay for the plants over a period of 5 years in monthly installments of about $9.9 million. Ghana obviously also pays for the fuel and other operational and other servicing costs. The total costs come to $510 million at the end of 5 years.

On January 20, 2022, pursuant to the agreement the NDC government signed under the visionary John Mahama government, the Ameri Power Plant is now owned by Ghana. This same government was out there celebrating the takeover.

Note therefore that, if the NPP government didn’t extend another 10 months to the ending of this agreement, the Plant would have been ours 10 months before the aforementioned date.

My question is, couldn’t the NPP government truncate the agreement instead of extending it if was that bad?

Now, the banking sector clean-up exercise this government had committed ghc21 billion instead of using just GHC 9 billion to keep those indigenous financial institutions, jobs and also protect customers’ savings. And so, didn’t they know that, it was an incompetent and reckless decision to collapse those indigenous financial institutions only to turn today blaming themselves for such incompetence?

The mind-boggling question to ask is, didn’t they have the men to think through meticulously before collapsing financial institutions? So why are they saying that the clean-up exercise is one of the reasons why Ghana is in the IMF for a bailout? The officials of the NPP government have collapsed the financial institutions or HE John Mahama?

I cringe when I hear people comparing our inflation rate to that of the developed economies when we have West African countries very close to us. Our next-door neighbour Togo has inflation of 8%. My questions are, didn’t Togo experience Covid, is Togo not facing a higher rate of fuel products in the world market as a result of the Russia and Ukraine war? Shamefully, Togo is not a net producer of oil like Ghana. However, Ghana’s economy has collapsed. That’s, “we have the men” have collapsed the economy.

These people have failed us yet their egocentric tendencies are keeping them in an illusion that they have been blinded to even realise that they have landed over 30 million population into a ditch. Yet, they still think that Ghanaians are stupid after borrowing recklessly unlike any government in the history of Ghana will believe them for saying that JM must be blamed for this mess.

Please read carefully,

Why we are where we are today as a country:

1. The government of the day didn’t think through deeply or meticulously in rather using ghc21 billion to collapse some financial institutions instead of injecting ghc9 billion to sustain them.

2. Borrowing so much for services.
3. Removal of toll booths.
4. So much taxes on petroleum products.
5. Expensive foreign travels.
6. Implementation of free SHS.
7. Ballooned the wage bill from ghc14 billion to about ghc35 billion.
8. Collateralization of GetFund, Esla and over subscription to bonds(over $10 billion)
9. Larger government( 123 ministers & over 1000 staffers at the presidency)
10. Revenue leakages, mismanagement and misappropriation.

The state of our economy!