Bawumia�s Lecture Portrayed Him As Someone At The Level Of NPP Serial Callers - Pratt

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., has posited that the "State of the Economy" lecture delivered by Vice Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is comparable to the many comments passed by serial callers of the party on radio. According to him, the NPP has done a great disservice to their running mate by offering him such a platform, since it has �ended up portraying him (Bawumia) as somebody without new ideas and who at best is at the level of the NPP serial callers.� The NPP Vice-Presidential candidate, at the 5th Ferdinard Ayim Memorial Lectures in Accra, outlined the various economic opportunities which according to him, have placed the current administration in favourable stead to improve the conditions of the ordinary Ghanaian. The Economist guru, among other issues, argued that although inflation could be a measurement issue, the established relationships between inflation and key economic variables appeared to have gone missing for now. Taking the packed auditorium filled with members of civil society, supporters of the NPP, media practitioners and various other observers through a concise analysis of the Ghanaian economy, Dr. Bawumia took his time to deflate the much touted single digit inflation talk of the ruling National Democratic Congress. He pointed out that while inflation was said to be in single digits, it had no correlation to the cost of commodities in the markets, general cost of living, the interest rates and also the exchange rates of the Ghana cedi. Dr. Bawumia mentioned the prices of basic commodities such as Gari, Maize, Pure Water, Cement as well as prices of fuel products and tariffs of water and electricity, school fees, road tolls etc. which had all seen triple digit increases and quizzed why the much talked about single digit inflation was not reflecting on the ground.