What a Failed Presidency: President Akufo-Addo

Reading the Business News of Feb.22, 2023 by Maxwell Adombila, plus other news from Bloomberg and Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, make one sad for our nation Ghana!

From the recent news and mentioning 46% inflation rate and lending interest rates in the 50% range, it would appear Ghanaians lack basic intelligence in managing our nation and major Capital theft and mismanagement- a disgrace that reflects on all of us as a people! How can you expect to charge 40/50% interest in a business loan and expect the borrower to survive! Ridiculous!

It is with great regret that I put these words in writing to point out that the Presidency of Nana Akufo-Addo has been the greatest failure in Ghana’s history so far as some of us at his age bracket know and can evaluate.

It appears Nana did no valuable planning at all and for over 30 years was simply waiting on the previous family name to become President! But to do what?

I read this elsewhere:
“Jubilee House has a staff strength of 995 as at 2021, an increment of 61 from 934 in 2020. 337 of the number are political appointees”! Does this make sense? The article or posting further states:

“The Presidency is said to have some 23 communication officers in addition to Eugene Arhin.

The communications team is made up of;

• 4 Directors of Comm
• 5 Dep Directors of Comm
• 2 Comm. Specialists,
• 3 Comm. Officers
• 5 Technical Comm. Assistants
• 1 Media Aide
• 1 Assist Media Liaison Officer
• 1 Comm. Consultant
• 1 Presidential Advisor on Media, and his Technical Advisor.”

The last part said “Mahama in 2016 had some 600 presidential staffers which Ghanaians crucified him for”.

This gives me the impression this may be political, but the question is:

is this true?
Is this happening in a nation where expenses are more than revenue and hence the nation needs to borrow to spend?

How can any human with self-decency make it a life-long ambition to become President of Ghana with no clear strategic plan and no long strategic thinking on the economic conditions and how to fix them?

The leadership men considered semi- educated, like Col. I.K. Acheampong from 1972-79, seem to have done far better than that of Akufo-Addo and his nephew or Cousin Ken Ofori Atta as Finance Minister and Gloria Akufo as Attorney General!

You borrow $28.4 billion to build highway flyovers and other kinds of projects or infrastructure, but lack the foresight to plan the payment of interest let alone principal and interest (P&I)! Who would believe this?

The government even closed down the collection of highway tolls for a period of time! What kind of common-sense decisions are these?

How the heck did Nana and Ken think of paying the loans back?

Even at a modest rate of say 6% interest, anybody with a Business Calculator can figure out that the Principal and Interest monthly payments on the $28.4 Billion, assuming amortization of 120 months is $315,298,226 per month. That comes to $10,170,911 due per day!

How the heck does any group of intelligent people fail to plan payments, and figure out the right sources of toll and tax collection!

I have to admit that these calculations are not practiced in the classrooms of even the top Universities in America but something any Mortgage Loan broker can teach them in a few minutes!

It is quite obvious to many observers that the Economy has been collapsed and the Yale education has been wasted on Ken Ofori Atta who seem to even invoke the name of God and his Christian religion in public dialogue- perhaps as a way to camouflage his failed or criminal actions!

The same Bible he reads tells us that “a fool and his money are soon parted” (Prov: 21:20) and also that “the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov. 22:7)!

Why would a Yale University graduate borrow money without strategic payback planning? This is a disgrace indeed!

What has Ken Ofori Atta and Nana Akufo-Addo proposed to stimulate the economy of Ghana save finding more and more ways to tax ordinary people while valuable commercial and residential real estate are not being taxed. Ghana does not even have a street addressing system and database for town and district-planning! They just don’t know how to go about taxing these buildings!

Where did all the education go to except figure out ways for Ofori Atta to skim off commissions from the borrowed billions of dollars in loans!

Does the digital address system introduced for tens of millions of dollars help us collect taxes? No! Dr. Bawumia has to accept that he has caused financial loss to the nation and these executives borrowing moneys and wasting them on reckless projects should be held accountable for the financial losses after their term is over!

Ken wants the external lenders to forgive the interests! Why is he and his Databank Brokerage keeping the commissions gained when borrowing these funds?

CONCLUSION:
What has happened with our Ghana boils down to criminal behavior or negligence and it is the strong opinion of this writer that any future government should prosecute the current and past operators as they themselves will also falter on these loans!

The only way our nation can survive is through careful

• well thought-out planning,
• strict discipline in implementation,
• leadership integrity, and
• prudence in spending the taxpayer funds and not borrow for the President and his family fantasy Cathedral legacy expenditures! No!! The Cathedral is such a major mistaken fantasy!

Creative investment capital will flow in if we use our brains well to do what nations like Singapore did and make Ghana attractive for Capital investment in manufacturing.

May God save our motherland!
Dr. Kwaku A. Danso
Intn’l President- Ghana Leadership Union(GLU).