Dr Bawumia, The Prophet Of Numbers

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia

The Renaissance astronomer Galeli Galelio said the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. The Philosopher Jim Holt said Mathematics feels real, and the world feels mathematical. Prior to WW2, the idea of a comprehensive national statistics as a measure of economic performance was alien.

Numbers as a placeholder for economic reality was only idealistic and Economics still saw itself as a blood cousin of Philosophy, History and Political Science. The nexus between numbers and corporal reality has its roots in pre-socratic philosophical musings. However, statistics as a representation of economic reality was a postwar invention.

Although rudimentary national accounts were kept in imperial courts from Augustus to the court of the sun king, Louis XVI. Economic failure was hardly a threat, not because Emperors deified themselves or the rights of Kings were sealed in heaven, but because Emperors and Kings lived in a Darwinian world where the survival of the empire or Kingdom was the basis of success. It was prudent to wage costly wars and run aground imperial accounts without popular ire as long as aggressive foreign incursion is kept at bay. Even with such leeway, emperors who went on debt binge risked few imperil pretenders and those with hard luck risked more -fatal mutiny or their heads. How different the world is.

Prior to the the Second World War, the leading Indicators which have come to define national life, individual economic plans as well as corporate strategy was non-existent. But like all great inventions, they're always a response to grinding human discomforts as Zachary Karabell puts it " The impetus to invent statistics to measure what we now call “the economy” was a combination of the passion to conquer the unknown and the desire to create more social justice and equity."

Economic statistics as a key battleground for political tug of war is almost a novelty in Ghana. The historical dearth of it is justifiable because our chequered political history is a history of an exploration for the right political template that would fit our collective aspiration as the maiden country to be de-colonized sub of the Sahara. Men, as well as institutions, were adapted to the political struggle and the enormity of the struggle left neither men nor institutions unencumbered by the pressing duties thrust on them by their nascent state.

It was an epoch defined by a simple but well adapted biblical phrase: seek ye first the political kingdom and everything shall be added unto thee. Men who understood the significance of statistical politics were vanishingly few and their extolling of its virtues were seen by many as a remote intellectual pastime fated for academic corridors. It's a little wonder that after decades of independence with vast resource deposits and sturdy human capabilities, much of our economic performance has been mediocre at best.

When Dr Bawumia was first selected in 2008, he was seen as a better balance in terms far unrelated to what he has evolved to represent and few dare imagined of his numerical revolution in our political architecture. He was seen as a mere compliment to Nana Addo an astute politician whose political acumen and shrewdness have been honed by decades of unquestionable dedication to national service. A calling he has never betrayed and a vocation he has never sullied.

Nana Addo as one of the cardinal pillars of our politics needed just a mate that could exploit the sectoral divide at least per the political playbook. It was more like a fully formed galaxy gravitationally tugging along a dwarf one. But barely a decade it is more like two mature galaxies orbiting a common center.

Dr Bawumia's prominence obviously hinges on his fertile numerical mind. A rare breed in politics. His conviction in numerical certainty and its force of restoration is like a million wedges striking through a political atmosphere draped in waste and barbarian ignorance. His number revolution has blown away the vile veneer that for several years sealed our cancerous politics, aided and abetted countless financial burglary. He has forced government's economic operations into the harsh and unforgiving broad day light from its comfortable moonlight perch where governments shady businesses are lost in the fifth dimension of darkness.

Thoughtful Ghanaians would not scream for economic transparency from government any more and successive governments would no more distract themselves with ludicrous issues to evade economic reckoning. The template is drawn and a new political dawn is upon us.

Like most revolutions their appeal are measured by their future values and their future values like capital projects can be discounted to ascertain their long-term profitability. Dr Bawumia's numerical revolution has far more profitability beyond the present milieu than the political calculus would have us believe. One crucial area that would be transformed is economic accountability .

As we gradually consolidate his numerical culture, government economic practices would be easily understood and their utility carefully debated. This would engender a new form of economic democracy that fears popular sentiments and lionises popular participation. Economic accountability would be mandated by carefully evolved institutions rather than the usual perfunctory ones. Economic statistics would be scrutinised under the informed gaze of a nation schooled in government minutiae and a collective mind that has internalised government's economic operations. It requires time as the brilliant quantum physicist Charles Misner aptly observed: It may take many decades for mathematical progress to be matched by philosophical understanding. But the wait doubtlessly will worth our while.

It would perhaps cast an outsized impact on political communication. The ballooning and often meaningless swath of political commentators whose lifelines are drawn from feasting on political trivialities would soon have their life support system withered and with it their profits and fickle fame by the onslaught of pertinent issues grounded in empirical facts. A vocation these commentators do not only lack its skills but the judgement to discern it's finer points. It is the imminent joblessness of these folks that makes Dr Bawumia so cool.

This revolution would not only help in repairing our internal accounts, jettison empty rhetoric and shame governments but it would stimulate a genuine international interests in our economic administration and draw around us the economic respectability and financial credibility that often translate into cheap loans and easy access to financial markets. Market validation that Argentina could only dream of and Greece would kill to have in order to rescue itself from its deep financial morass - a curse occasioned by years of fiscal vortex and fudging of it's economic statistics. Within a decade, our debt portfolio has skyrocketed and its inching menacingly towards levels where even aggressive fiscal conservatism would seem meaningless. It's gradually getting to the fiscal equivalent of an event horizon of a black hole- a cosmic point of no return.

The experience of Argentina, Greece and France of Louis XVI is a free lesson we can't afford to unlearn. Dr Bawumia may have inspired this revolution but he's also hobbled by its imperatives. His invention has assumed a life of its own. He has unleashed a juggernaut that spares nothing in its wake. I hope Dr Bawumia would not dare unlearn the lesson he is passionately teaching us and would not forget the tools he has employed in breaching the walls of President Mahama's tanking economy and voodoo Economics.

John Amoakohene
Student, Institute Of Chartered Accountants, Ghana. Email: [email protected]

Amoakohene