Running around Akufo-Addo waking up to reality too late

Opinions on Monday, November 30, 2020

Columnist: Esther Domi

2020-11-30

The heat of the 2020 election campaign has finally reached President Akufo-Addo who until now was too complacent and fell asleep thinking about his late-breaking populist policies such as the surprise announcement to pay blocked funds from depositors of collapsed banks and the problematic Free. SHS, which many believe are for votes, has already sealed the victory.

Various opinion polls between July and October this year put opposition candidate John Mahama ahead of the incumbent.

Mahama took advantage of favorable polls and stepped up campaigns across the country, while the president relaxed in Accra by taking part in the show and concentrating on attempting to redress the scandalous Agyapa Gold royalty transactions that the Special Prosecutor’s Office has exposed as fraudulent and full of corrupt arrangements by top government officials.

The negative impact of the OSP’s Corruption Risk Assessment and Anti-Corruption Report and the subsequent resignation of the Special Prosecutor over President Akufo-Addo’s alleged attempts to cover up the rot in it has awakened the President from his complacent sleep.

Since then, he’s been on desperate tours of the Volta, Greater Accra and Central regions after his sakawa lawn mowing between September and October yielded nothing as people challenged him to show the work progress since he cut the sod. .

In these desperate campaigns, the president has set aside caution and has devoted himself to spreading falsehoods and insults against his main contender, John Mahama. One such falsehood has sparked a heated debate over who introduced Free SHS to Ghana; a debate the president has already overwhelmingly lost.

It is also clear that the President forgot his party’s manifesto to articulate his messages.

The opposition NDC People’s Manifesto, which boasts free Primary Health Care (PHC) and the $ 10 billion Infrastructure Plan, has relegated the ruling party’s manifesto to the background. The situation has become so embarrassing for the president that his government can no longer keep confidential documents of the ministries as such.

Certain memoranda are intentionally posted in the public domain for propaganda purposes. Memorandums from the GRA holding NABCO staff are on social media as documents circulate indicating Ministry of Finance authorization for some hires.

To add to his despair, the president and his New Patriotic Party have sponsored bogus polls that will be published in his favor in recent days to sway the minds of voters. This week, Ben Ephson produced a poll result of 52.7% for them. This same pollster admitted that Gabby Otchere Darko bribed her $ 20,000.00 to do the same in 2008. Just yesterday, the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana discredited itself by publishing a poll result in favor of the PNP.

Inside sources say no such survey was ever conducted dismissing the findings, and this development is said to be causing serious confusion in the department at this time.

After firing public service employees in 2017 claiming they were recruited too close to the 2016 general election, the PNP government has forgotten its own ethics in this regard and is engaging in unnecessary mass recruitment in the public sector ostensibly to mislead citizens to vote. for them. This development is despite the fact that the government has been unable to pay the people it previously employed in the public service earlier this year.

These hasty recruits near the general election cannot be trusted to bode well for the intended beneficiaries.

More worrying is the fact that the government has mismanaged the economy to send the country’s total debt beyond 273 billion GHc, resulting in the dreaded debt-to-GDP ratio of 73.1%; a HIPC situation.

With no end in sight and wasteful spending in this electoral period, the PNP is recklessly driving the country with impunity. Efforts and many sacrifices will be needed for the country to return to a solid economic footing after the elections. Those responsible for this mess must have something of courage to ask the people who suffer from their recklessness to give them another mandate to continue the mess.

In less than 10 days, the people will make their judgment. Akufo-Addo may be hopeful, but his last minute maneuvers are too late to rescue him.