Why Government's Forged Economic Data A Major Blow To Our Entire Governance Processes

Fellow Ghanaians, if the crocodile can eat its own eggs, please, let's be honest, what else can't it do to the innocent flesh of the frog?

If government has the shameless audacity to deliberately miscalculate gross international reserves, and fiscal deficit, by including petroleum money, and excluding cost of energy and financial sectors, respectively, in order to win votes, what can’t it do to the rest of other sectors in the country.

Clearly, with the popularity of the New Patriotic Party, NPP government keeps fading away faster than a misguided opinion, one does not expect anything from the rather “Salvation Army” government of President Akufo Addo other than deception and disgrace.

But I think the cocktail of lies and the cacophony of economic noise that ensued in respect of the purported concocted economic figures presented by government of Ghana to the International Monetary Fund, IMF, have actually waken up many intellectually asleep Ghanaians.

Whereas a section of Ghanaians think this act of betrayal of patriotism, transparency, trust, and honesty by the government, is a calculated attempt to continually hookwink them, other section of the populace attributed it to failure of intellectual resources, and a gross incompetence on the part of the Economic Management Team (EMT).

Be that as it may, the question is not whether lying in any given moment is acceptable or not if the government really lied to Ghanaians. What was intended to be achieved with such a falsehood, is what matter.

In a country where majority are largely driven by hedonism, and greed and avarice have become the order of the day, especially when you have many of those at the helm of affairs being complete obligate parasites, who ceaselessly and mercilessly feed fat upon the rest of us, what else can't be done in order to keep resources of pleasure flowing?

Today, our political landscape is littered with "political Jihadists", and bigotry of all forms have been displayed with a swag of impunity in order to maintain political power. God save us.

A 19th century Hindu Guru, Rabindranath Tagore, once said that, "bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it (truth). Like in the traditional game of "Owari" in the Twi language, and "Wali" in the Dagbani language where "the game seeds" are usually gathered in one of the six holes belonging to each player in order to be used to score more game seeds, over gathering of which leads to loss, the New Patriotic Party, has over gathered their "game seeds" in this year's election thereby spoiling their chances of scoring due to greediness. (I'm sorry if you don't know what Owari or Wali is. It's a local game very akin to chess).

The governing party has, out of political bigotry killed its own victory in its own hand with a grip that was sought to keep the victory safe!

In an earlier article, "2020 Budget: A Document of Political 419ners" I tried to point out an aspect of the government's nauseating deception as far as their economic growth is concerned. I tried to draw Ghanaians attention to the Section Two of the budget which is always about projection of the global economy and how that section is responsible for countries' anticipated economies to either be positive or negative.

I indicated through comparison and contrast, the Section Twos of the budget statements under the NDC, which was mainly predictions and projections of dooms, with the NPP's. Miraculously enough, in 2017 when the NPP took over office that section of the budget projected positive global economy that I believe, has a significant impact upon all emerging markets which is what the NPP government benefitted from having, in addition, adopted an Expansionary fiscal policy.

Consequently, what virtually was negative and doom throughout in the NDC's era, became positive all of the sudden under the NPP.

You recall the 2008 financial crisis that originated from the USA, which consequently and subsequently crippled many economies of developing countries.

Also, the dwindled crude oil prices and other international commodities such as Cocoa, and Gold etc., in 2015 plus Ebola outbreak that same year, had a serious toll on the economies of developing countries. And as if that was not worst enough, our own internal Dumsor crisis (inherited by former President Mahama's administration), together with the above global economic phenomenon, all rolled into one, crippled the NDC government under President Mahama.

But things changed when the NPP came into office and the Section Two of the 2017 budget said it all. Having realized it, I concluded that, the economy of Ghana was likely going to grow without anybody even in the presidential villa, because the projections about what was to be expected were healthier vis-a-vis the NDC's tenure.

And as the saying goes, "when American or Chinese economy sneezes, Africa catches cold." What if their economies "laugh".

Now, despite all the above the government of the NPP has enjoyed, they still find it convenient to lie about its performance about the economy, which is worrisome.

What does the government stand to gain with this deliberate miscalculation of our Gross International Reserve? What would the government gain by creating two data for domestic purpose and for international purposes if that move was not out of complete cognitive failure?

Apparently, it's more certain than the NPP's lost in this year's election that political power seeking is what has bullied its seekers into lying through their premolars and molars to the good people of Ghana.

But here is the trouble fellow Ghanaians about this titanic lies by the government.

How are we now going to confidently trust our leaders about the rest of the information they have fed us over the years, especially those information that have a connection with election?

Recently, a Chief who doubles as a Justice got nominated to become a Supreme Court Judge under the misapprehension that he praised the President for his good works and even sort of recommended him for four more years.

While we are perplexed as to the kind of justice such a beneficiary will administer at the apex of the nation's justice system, the question is, how many Ghanaians want to replicate this chief's example?

When the leadership of Ghana Medical Association, GMA, didn't see anything wrong with the president's construction of 88 districts' hospitals this year alone to fight Covid -19, when many Ghanaians believed the President was either going through his Senior Moments or engaging in propaganda, was the GMA leadership also seeking relevance in Akufo Addo's government or that was really the right thing to do? And is the GMA factual about the its reports on the Covid -19 pandemic without pandering to the whims of the president.

Also, could it be that the figure about the number of Ghanaian voters who have registered for the Ghana Card, has also been skewed information or not?

How sure are we that government has not done under registration in areas that are electorally unfavorable to them in order to deliberately disenfranchised potential voters of opposition?

How many lies have they peddled about our collective affair because of their selfish interest and highfalutin?

Let fellow Ghanaians step up their game to police this government boot-for-boot.

Kudos to FactCheck Ghana and the IMF for raising the red flag over government's economic "true lies".

Abdul Hakeem Iddrisu
The Young Prof.
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