Digest voter outrage at contemporary political dynamics

Opinions on Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Columnist: Kwaku badu

2020-09-29

It is an indisputable fact that we choose to participate in universal adult suffrage with the expectation that our lives will be positively transformed by the government in power.

In theory, therefore, it is extremely important to vote according to prevailing socioeconomic standards of living, but not through the whims and whims of some selfish and unprincipled politicians whose only concern is manipulating unsuspecting voters to achieve their goals. parish interests.

Some of us, on principle, firmly believe that rampant devotional attachment is not the way to go, but constituencies should look beyond narrow political lines and assess the bigger picture.

That’s thinking about the way we can develop exponentially; what political party can move us forward as a nation. And even more so, the right-wing political party that would not misuse our resources anyway.

That said, it is somewhat untrue for skeptics to argue that all politicians are the same when in power and therefore see no need to switch from one to the other.

To be honest enough, skeptics’ outrage at the current political dynamics is shared by many Ghanaian electorates.

In fact, the disposition of the critics is misleading, because politicians have different levels of temperament, competence, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, so they are never the same, so to speak.

In fact, there is enough evidence to counter skeptics’ somewhat brash argument that politicians are equal when in power.

Take, for example, President Kufuor, who helped move Ghana from highly indebted poor country (HIPC) status to lower-middle-income status when he replaced former President Rawlings in 2001, he cannot be seen as a laid-back leader.

It is well documented that “during 2001, debt as a percentage of GDP was not only unsustainably high and crippling, it also deprived Ghanaians of money that could have been used for necessary social and development projects.”

However, the fact is that the benefits of the HIPC initiative were “unprecedented during the Kufuor regime since (2001-2008).

Macroeconomic indicators started to stabilize and Ghana’s debt stock dropped significantly by around $ 4 billion in that period (BOG).

There were rapid infrastructure developments, as well as social and political reforms. Ghana then went from a HIPC economy to a middle-income economy under the Kufuor administration (Mutaka Alolo, 2012).

By the end of 2008, Ghana’s economy had quadrupled to US $ 28 billion, a period of eight years under the national phase-out plan. The average GDP growth of the NDC for 1993-2000 was 3.8%, while that of the 2001-2008 PNP was 5.2% and economic growth reached 6.3% in 2007 (Daily Guide, 2016).

However, sadly, during the eight years of Mills / Mahama, they managed to uproot the good foundations laid by President Kufuor and his NPP government.

Take, for example, under the NDC government, Ghana’s total debt soared from GH ¢ 9.5 billion to a staggering GH ¢ 122.4 billion at the end of December 2016.

This means that around 93% (i.e. 113 billion GHC) of Ghana’s total debt since independence has accumulated under NDC rule from 2009 to 2016.

In fact, it would be very unfair to put, for example, Dr. Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and JJ Rawlings in the same basket and compare their achievements.

Because if nothing at all, Dr. Nkrumah was a tireless industrialist who built hundreds of factories and only for President Rawlings to dump it all off to his cronies through his somewhat unhappy economic recovery and divestment implementation programs.

Along the same lines, it would be inconceivably inconceivable to put President Kufuor and President Mahama on the same pedestal in terms of implementing social interventions.

Because if nothing at all, President Kufuor and his PNP government pragmatically introduced free maternal care, school feeding program, national health insurance plan, mass transportation system, empowerment of livelihoods against poverty. (LEAP), the national youth employment program, now known as GYEDA, and many other social interventions.

Likewise, it would be extremely unfair to put Akufo-Addo and Mahama on the same pedestal. This is because the former has introduced important policies and programs in less than four years in power, while the latter failed to introduce a single social intervention in eight years.

Also, under the Akufo-Addo presidency, Ghana’s economic growth went from a disappointing 3.4% under former President Mahama to around 8% before the pernicious coronavirus.

And double-digit inflation (15.8 in December 2016) dropped sharply to around 7.5%.

Dear reader, would you be honest enough and name a single social intervention that has been implemented by President Mahama and his NDC administration, who claim to be Social Democrats?

Indeed, it would only take a contentious character to question the fact that the NDC faithful, who pride themselves on the social democratic ideology, are not dedicated to promoting the welfare of the masses.

One would have thought that individuals who pride themselves on being Social Democrats will be extremely empathetic to the needs of the masses, but this is not the case with the NDC as a party.

It is an open secret that the NDC has a penchant for exhausting or canceling crucial social interventions. It is a sad case of social democrats who do not know how to initiate and manage social interventions.

The fact that the former NDC government intentionally canceled / collapsed Nurse Allowance, Teacher Allowance, SADA, GYEEDA, NHIS, Maternal Care, School Feeding Program, Transportation System cannot be denied or ignored massive, among others.

Since the beginning of the Fourth Republican Constitution, the self-proclaimed Social Democrats have been opposing the social interventions that have been proposed by successive PNP governments such as Free Maternal Care, the NHIS, the Mass Transit Metro, the School Feeding Program , Livelihoods Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), free SHS, among others.

So it is not entirely correct for anyone to assume that all politicians are the same, once they are in their comfort zone, and therefore it is a futile exercise to go out and vote.

The fact is, if you refuse to come out and vote en masse for positive change, someone else will elect ‘a semicircle’ of corrupt and incompetent representatives who will only continue to plunge the nation further and further into the mud.

In closing, Ghanaians must not make the catastrophic mistake of putting all politicians in one basket and rejecting a charismatic leader who can present convenient policies like a district, a factory, a village, a dam, a million dollar constituency. , Free SHS among others. .

K. Badu, UK.

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