Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia, the Vice-Presidential aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the 2016 General Election, has asked Ghanaians not to forgive the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), for mismanaging the country’s economy.
He says the current economic stress is self-inflicted, borne out of mismanagement and corruption, stressing that it is unforgiveable for the country to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout.
“Three years after Ghana started exporting crude oil, we have arrived cup in hand at the IMF, begging for a bailout. This is a clear case of mismanagement and it is unforgiveable,” Dr. Bawumia stressed.
He was speaking at a lecture organised by the Economic Students Association of the University for Development Studies, Wa campus, on the theme: The State of Ghana’s Economy – bridging the gap between the statistics and the reality.” According to Dr. Bawumia, the NDC government over the last six years has had more resources than all the governments since independence to the Kuffuor administration put together, and could not give any excuse for the economic mess.
He noted that the government had collected GH¢62 billion tax within the last six years, compared with the Gh¢15.2billion collected over the eight-year period of the Kuffuor Administration. Dr. Bawumia noted that government had borrowed GH66.6billion within the last six years, which according to him was ten times more than the GH¢5.5 billion borrowed under the eight-year term of Kuffuor.
He said Ghana’s GOLD and cocoa export amounted to $25 billion and $14.5 billion respectively within the same period, compared with Kuffour administration’s $9 billion and 7.4 billion respectively.
Dr. Bawumia said between 2011 and 2014, Ghana exported crude oil to the tune of $13.7 billion, out which the country earned some $3 billion as revenue. He said the question Ghanaians need to ask is “if government had received all these revenue, why then is the country in such a mess? Why are all the social safety nets collapsing? Why are businesses collapsing? Why are there no jobs for the youth?”
Dr. Bawumia said that the recent fiscal development indicated deterioration in the state of public FINANCING, resulting in government’s inability to meet its statutory payments and payment to contractors.
This situation according to him had arisen largely due to major increase in government expenditure relative to revenue in the run-up to the 2012 elections and in 2013. Dr. Bawumia said while government revenue remained at 17.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2011 and 2013, expenditure increased by 66 per cent, indicating an increase from 21.1 per cent of GDP in 2011 to 26.7 per cent of GDP.
He expressed worrying that the bulk of increase in government expenditure was in the area of recurrent expenditure and not in the area of Investment. Dr. Bawumia noted that excessive fiscal expansion created problems in some developing countries because it had proved to be largely monetized because once the deficit was increased it would have to be financed.
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