Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford, has said the Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, failed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its Presidential Candidate, John Mahama in the just ended election.
“To a large extent, I think Kwesi Amissah-Arthur is to blame for the NDC losing this election,” Mr. Casely-Hayford opined on The Big Issue.
The December 7 presidential poll saw the worst defeat recorded by a sitting President in Ghana’s election history.
President Mahama became the first incumbent to lose a re-election bid after a first term, as the opposition New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, won 53.85% of the total valid votes cast, against his 44.40%.
Mr. Casely-Hayford indicated that the Veep was brought into the party in 2012 “as someone who was going to be able to sort out the financial and economic problems” and also as a counter to the NPP’s Running Mate and economist, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
The past election cycle saw Dr. Bawumia present a bleak assessment of Ghana’s economy, during a lecture, where he dared the NDC’s Mr. Amissah-Arthur to answer his 170 questions on the state of the economy.
But Mr. Amissah-Arthur largely avoided the topic and said two days to the elections that, anyone asking 170 questions was not serious and that most of the questions put forward by Dr. Bawumia were mere statements of fact.
Mr. Casely-Hayford maintained that the Vice President was expected to bring some sanity into the NDC’s economic policies and developments especially after the death of a senior adviser to the President and former Chair of the National Development Planning Commission, Paul Victor Obeng.
But Mr. Amissah Arthur was never able to step forward to assume that mantle after PV Obeng’s death in 2014, given the crucial role he played with the National Economic Forum at Senchi, he stated.
“Therefore [Finance Minsiter] Terkper became the person who was driving economic change and economic stability to the extent that Kwesi Amissah Arthur never featured strongly, even though he was one of the persons who had far more experience than anybody else in the party at the time,” Mr. Casely-Hayford noted.
“This ultimately let down the thrust of any financial change in the party and in government,” according to Mr. Hayford, who added that “the weakest part of the NDC was the economics issue, and they were never able to get somebody who could bring the confidence that it would change in the future.”
Source: Citifmonline.com
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The simple understanding is that "NDC DO NOT HAVE ANY ECONOMIST IN THEIR MIST" hence the economy has deteriorated to now.
Why should anybody listen to an educated illiterate like Casley Hayford. NDC lost the elections gallantly and no NDC member should blame or fight anybody. Ghana was sick and we had two proposals to heal Ghana, whether they, made sense or not. Whilst one was proposing paraceutamol and codeine which children do not like, the other was proposing toffees and biscuits which do not cure the sickness. The media was on the side of the toffees and biscuits from first day and so the people chose the path of toffees and biscuits. Please, NDC just keep quiet and watch if the administration elect would not come back like the late Mills (his soul rest in peace) did on one time NHIS, to withdraw all their toffees and biscuits and revert to the paracetamol and codeine. So Casely and all the other pretenders who were supposed to understand and interpret development issues better should shu+ the fuck1 up and NDC should stop the infighting
SO NDC PEOPLE WILL NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM THIS EMBARRASSING DEFEAT BUT CONTINUE TO INSULT THE INTEGRITY OF GHANAIANS. YOU WILL BE IN OPPOSITION TILL THY KINGDOM COME.
@ Tony the Bull, you've made some salient points apart from the insults. Yes the NDC were forced into a corner when they had no wriggle room. That is why they went for the teachers training, nursing training allowance. That is why the dumsor took so long. What were they thinking. Now they had to prioritise their spending so the areas that they had their core votes from were neglected. Volta region, many parts of Western and Central regions, The three Northern regions. All these coupled with corruption and the perception of corruption killed them off.
Casely Hayford, an old man hypocrite, you and your occupy Ghana cronies hated JM & the NDC from day one and wanted them out of power, So why now blame someone for their defeat. You should rather praise Paa Kwesi for helping you achieve your target as you think his actions and inaction caused the NDC the elections. This is HYPOCRISY of the highest order.PLEASE OLD MAN, THINK THROUGH YOUR GREY HAIR AND REASON FOR ONCE.
Stop your ***barred word***, Casley. You all along hated NDC so if they have lost what is stake in NDC matters? Partisan media analyst like you we need not your advice or contribution. You are stomach analyst. waiting to ne compensated by NPP
Massa; 'It is the economy 'STOOOOOPID'!!!!!!!!! ; this was once said by President Clinton ; you see the management of any economy is dependent on people who know how the economy ticks and skilled people who understand the macro-economic variables in an economy so as to create wealth for a country ;we are not of people who have studied 'A' level economics or have studied economics as a part of their course content such as reading accountancy or any other subject; Amissah-Arthur had no such skills although he might claim to be an economist because any good economist must have an element of creativity and a good understanding of macro-economic variables ; Seth Terpkor and Amissah -Arthur had no such skills in macro-economic pursuit and matters were made worse by this NDC parrot mouth FiFi Kwettey ; who claimed to understand policies in economic management but failed woefully at the ministry of finance and was moved ; Seth Terpkor brought in another non educated ediot in macroeconomic thought another NDC donkey call Ato Forson a student accountant who has never done anything in his life but managed to build a hotel but how he built such hotel is anybody's guess besides there was this fake investment banker m/s Quartey who did not have a clue where her waste wind pipe was; these bunch of educated illiterates messed up the economy badly because for them 'borrowing' was the key to any economic progress but managing the economy was irrelevant -JUST BORROW AND SPEND !!!!!!!; their motto was simple 'smart borrowing' the call it ; what they did not understand was that borrowing had a huge cost on the Ghanaian tax payer ; besides these World Bank ad the IMF were all pretending and providing Ghana with the false economic advice and reports to attract them to borrow more ;the idea of borrowing was simple borrow and utilise loans for irrelevant infrascture but ignore the cost/benefit to the people besides these projects was a ripe platform for Jon Mahama to advance project contracts to his brother Ibrahim Mahama and NDC cronies and family ; if Amissah-Arthur was up to speed on the key variables underlining macro-economic application ; this ediotic fante full with no charisma and probably GAY should have warned the government that the economy was heading for a crash if such status quo is maintained in borrowing 'circle loop' which meant the economy will come to a stand still because you so dependent on borrowing that you have forgotten to create wealth to pay your debts; for me the writer was correct !!!!!!!!'IT WAS THE ECONOMY STOOOOOOPID'!!!!!!! because Nana Addo and the NPP were offering the key elements of any economy -CREATION OF WEALTH ;GROWTH AND JOBS FOR THE PEOPLE.
Please, please you people should stop this kinds of contradictory analysis. Is Mahama not Amissah Arthur's boss? If a subordinate is not performing wouldn't a competent boss know and take steps to improve performance, or even fire the non-performing subordinate? It is Mahama who failed when he selected an incompetent Vice-President, Amissah Arthur. Mahama also failed in making best fit appointments, and he also failed in the supervision of his appointees.
nonsence u were out there campaonin for npp with so many demonatration amd u have turn round to blame somebody. now the time had come for you to do your drug & ither elegal deals shame unto to people, God is up there watching U. U would be put tp shame soon.
wow Dan...you have enlighten me tremendously. so that was what transpired...interesting.kudos to the npp. Ghana needs credible elections.and i believe that is what we have with respect to this very election.