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If The President Omits These In His State Of The Nation Address, He Risks Losing His Credibility

Feature Article President Nana Akufo- Addo
FEB 7, 2018 LISTEN
President Nana Akufo- Addo

President Akufo-Addo in his maiden state of the nation address on February 21st, 2017, told us that he is “in a hurry” to solve our problems. He listed three key setbacks – bad economy, governance lapses and a decline in our national culture and attitudes – which in his assessment reflects our present situation. In turn, he assured Ghanaians that his government will turn the situation to the positive.

It is expected that the President speaks to his aforementioned setbacks while presenting the facts of our current situation to Ghanaians honestly, without any concealment. In addition, he should account for the following categorical commitments he made:

1. Reduce significantly fiscal deficit by close of 2017. According to the President, our anaemic public finance system which allows 99.6% of government revenue to be swallowed up by compensation, interest payments, and amortization and statutory payments, is self-inflicted through policy choices; a path the erstwhile Mahama administration is claimed to have tread on. If indeed, the President was able to reverse engineer the three budgetary lines and create room for public infrastructure spending from public funds and not through loans, then that will mark the burial of ‘Terkpernomics’ or borrowing for development financing.

2. Increase public investment in agriculture, starting from the first budget of his government. Interestingly, the 2018 budgetary allocation to the Food and Agriculture sector declined by 21% (from GHS760m in 2017 to GHS599m). Whilst we await actual disbursements to the sector, the President has to tell Ghanaians reasons for the reduction, and the gains made in the sector especially in rural farming communities.

3. Update on the industrial transformation programme which include, among others:

a. Provision of reliable, affordable power to enterprises and homes;

b. Stimulus package for Ghanaian industries to improve their competitiveness;

c. One district, one factory;
d. Establishment of petrochemical, iron and steel, integrated aluminium, vehicle assembly and automotive industries, etc;

e. Industrial park in each region;
f. Etc.
All the above stated programmes and policies are meant to lift millions of Ghanaians from the crippling depths of poverty into economic prosperity. However, political zest can obliterate the true impact of these economic programmes. If the President is not au fait on unemployment trends in this country as he admitted at a recent encounter with the Press, then how can the effectiveness of these programmes be objectively tracked and assessed? Already the government has serious communication gaffes in this respect. For instance, on 31st October, 2017, Ghanaweb.com reported Mr John Boadu, Acting General Secretary of the NPP claiming that the government has created 100,000 jobs through the Youth Employment Agency. On 8th November, 2017, modernghana.com also reported of a group calling itself Concerned NPP Women also claiming that Gender Minister Madam Otiko Djaba has singlehandedly created 18,000 jobs. Then on 17th December 2017, the President himself was reported by citifmonline.com saying that his government taking cognizance of rising unemployment in the country, has laid the foundation for jobs. This is chaotic and confusing.

Granted that 118,000 jobs were created by the NPP government in the last quarter of 2017, they were in relation to what – 1, 3 or 5 million unemployed youth?

Economic progress isn’t built on voodoo, imaginative and partisan (VIP) statistics.

“If African leaders are to succeed in improving the living standards of their peoples, a critical piece of the puzzle has to be the availability and use of information and data.” This is President Akufo-Addo speaking at the 2017 Africa Open Data Conference on July 20 last year. Yet the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), a clearing house for development indicators which has a sit in cabinet meetings and advise the President on national progress, has consistently lamented the poor state of data infrastructure and management in MDAs and MMDAs. Also, Ghana was not among the 12 out of the 54 African countries whose national statistical service were considered functionally autonomous and free from the influence and interference of partisan politics.

The President should tell us specific steps he has or is taking to ensure that correct but not non-skewed data is produced by Ghana Statistical Service, MDAs and MMDAs and made available to Ghanaians in all accessible formats. Ghanaians massively voted for him because they wanted a change, in principle and practice.

Equally important to be informed about is the state of the Affirmative Action Bill and the enforcement of the Disability Act to ensure its compliance.

Finally, in his maiden address to the state, he underscored the accolade accorded to him re “his personal belief in and adherence to the concept of the separation of powers” and called on all three arms of government to review their modus operandi.

On this trajectory, Odekro, a non-partisan parliamentary monitoring organization, shares in the President’s belief, and in fact, is working very hard to ensure that Parliament functions as it is designed to, within our democratic setup. Odekro observed that the President appointed 71 out of his 110 Ministers from Parliament, of which 39 appointees violated Article 97(1)(c) of the 1992 constitution. Odekro is of the considered view that, it has become imperative for the President to call for a review of Article 78(1), the provision which gives him the power to appoint majority of his Ministers from Parliament, for true separation of powers to exist among our arms of government.

It’s the economy, stupid! Yes, but the President should also be held accountable for the other things he promised Ghanaians.

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