Why Akufo-Addo Can Be Credited With The Banking Sector Cleanup But Mahama Cannot Enjoy Any Credit For Bank Of Ghana’s Hospital Construction

When a factual issue is unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, it becomes an albatross around the necks of individuals who had wanted to massage same for their own selfish desires.

Failure to win the argument sometimes leads to a deliberate twisting of events and illogical juxtapositions when the facts do not jell with the happenings on the ground.

Coming to the realization that the so-called Mahama Bank of Ghana Hospital mantra has been deflated with indisputable facts, the likes of Cassiel Ato-Forson, Felix Kwakye-Ofosu and their zombie pals on social media have started a line of argument that can only be described as strange.

The central bank of the Republic, the Bank of Ghana, through funds generated internally, took upon itself to put up a hospital for its staff and the general public. Not a penny of the taxpayers’ money was spent on the project. In fact, the project never found its way to Parliament for approval since the funds to be used were not from the state or would not be on the books of the state.

The NDC, in their Green Book of lies, captured the edifice as one of the hospitals supposedly built by Mahama. Ato-Forson intimates that it is a Mahama legacy because the central bank is a public entity.

However, when the facts were pulled out to disclaim that notion, they are trying to shift the argument to a point of absurdity.

Felix and his troops ask whether the banking sector clean-up would be credited to Akufo-Addo since the Bank of Ghana, an independent body, is part and parcel of the exercise and cannot be subjected to the dictatorial hands of any government or regime.

They conclude that as long as the banking sector cleanup can be credited to Akufo-Addo, then the Bank of Ghana Hospital should be given to Mahama as well.

This line of argument is not only lame but mind-numbing as it fails to create a direct relationship between the two scenarios. The two issues are diametrically parallel to each other.

In the construction of the hospital, the state did not commit any money to it but in the banking sector clean-up, it was the state that supplied all the funds needed to bail out the suffering banks.

In fact, the budgetary statements for the past three years have contained sources of the funds to clean up the banking sector. The Finance Ministry actually provided the money. The debt is sitting on the books of the state unlike the money used to build the hospital.

How can the two scenes provide similar outcomes when their parameters differ substantially?

In effect, Akufo-Addo can take credit for the banking sector cleanup because the administration, through the Ministry of Finance, made monies available for the exercise whereas in the case of the hospital, no ministry or agency of the state provided financial assistance to the central bank.

These facts make nonsense of the argument being advanced by the NDC. Mahama cannot appropriate to himself projects he doesn’t know how they came into being. They have lost this debate before it begins.

P.K. Sarpong, Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place.