When the wobbling economy is propaganda tool

When Fifi Kwetey left the Parliamentary Appointments Committee in 2009 virtually wet after being quizzed on a series of lies he told about New Patriotic Party (NPP) gurus in the Kufuor administration he claimed were stealing gold from the vaults of the Bank of Ghana, The Chronicle was of the view that the newly-appointed Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning had mend his ways.

Apparently, we were wrong. A leopard, they say, can never change its spots. That is why in spite of state investment in educating him at public expense to appreciate issues of finance and economic planning, Fifi Kwetey's main passion apparently, remains misleading the people to make the wobbling administration of the National Democratic Congress look good.

When the former Propaganda Secretary of the NDC used state resources at the so-called Putting the Records Straight to lie his way through the so-called achievements of the NDC, the founder of the ruling party, Jerry John Rawlings, had given the average Ghanaian and the international community the apt description of the state of hopelessness in Ghana under Prof. John Evans Atta Mills.

'When you find yourself in an untended pit or hole,' advises Jerry Rawlings, 'the wise thing to do is to stop digging. It does not appear the Mills government is able to see growing darkness around them.'

In many homes across the country, assessing ordinary food is an uphill task. The issue of bread and butter underlines the survival instinct of the Ghanaian. That is why we are disappointed that instead of finding solutions to the myriads of problems created by this administration, which has pushed this country further into the woods, the leadership of this country clings to propaganda as the tool to make a moribund administration look good.

Many nationals of this country are bored stiff about single digit inflation, at a time when cost of goods and services are rising in triple and quadruple figures. If there is any miracle about this economy, it has been dreamt up by men and women who have worsened the plight of the Ghanaian.

How could the economy of Ghana be doing that well, when the cedi is on a downward slope? In January 2009, when Ms. Hannah Tetteh was crying wolf about the economy, the cedi was exchanging at GH¢1.12 to $1. Today, one needs GH¢2 to buy the dollar. At the forex bureaux, the dollar buys the cedi at $1 to GH¢1.70.

All the noise about kenkey politics originated from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, headed by Mr. Kwesi Ahwoi, which published its own findings into the rising cost of maize, and concluded that the price of kenkey is rising across board, and that there were places in Accra and Tema where a ball of kenkey sells for GH¢1.  That expose tells much about the success or otherwise of the so-called buffer stock project.

One thing about infrastructure development, including our road networks, is that they are there for all to see. The Chronicle does not believe comparing trunk roads under Kufuor with street development under Mills, gives an accurate picture of development.

Jerry John Rawlings may be an enigma, but when the founder of the ruling party says: 'The government is fast speeding into an abyss,' one needs no record to be put straight from propagandists.

That is why the propaganda apparel of Fifi Kwetey, as government agents intimidate would-be voters in the registration exercise, may be telling lot about the panic button that has been pushed at the seat of government.