The economic status of Ghana since independence has not been one that every citizen can be proud of, though those in political office have their own stories depending on where they stand.
Many times, the media has been inundated with news of corruption on the part of public officials, unfortunately the party in opposition tends to capitalise on it to paint the ruling party black, but they do worse when they come to office.
Since 1992, Ghana has been governed by the two main political parties: the ruling New Patriotic Party and the opposition National Democratic Congress, and we believe both parties would gladly accept blame or glory if, in their honest assessment of the economy after 31 years, they had done good or bad to it.
In paragraphs 81 and 82 of the 2023 budget review, the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, told Parliament that as of December 2022, Ghana’s central government debt and guaranteed debt in nominal terms stood provisionally at GH¢435,306.45 million, up from GH¢351,787.00 million at end-December 2021, representing an increase of 23.7 percent. Using the revised GDP released by the Ghana Statistical Service in April 2023, the debt-to-GDP ratio as at end-December 2022 stood at 71.3 percent.
Ghana, as we speak, is under the armpit of the International Monetary Fund for the 17th time. In October 2014, then President Mahama, while in talks with the IMF, expressed hope to Ghanaians that it would be the last, and President Akufo-Addo assured Ghanaians in February 2019 that the country would not return to the Bretton Woods financial institution after the exit in April.
The ballooning of the national debt, making the economy vulnerable and compelling governments to seek refuge at the IMF under stringent conditions, is the result of expending public funds sometimes with careless abandon.
The reports of the Auditor General are always fraught with irregularities that cost the poor taxpayer money. In most cases, these financial losses are due to the deliberate orchestration of civil servants, but politicians suffer the brunt.
These civil servants stay in their workplaces for a very long time under different regimes, so they are able to devise ways to steal from the state while hiding under political appointees who head the institutions.
On the other hand, if the description of the Supreme Court in the Woyome and Waterville case in 2013, in which the court described the judgment debt as create, loot, and share, is anything to go by, then politicians cannot be exonerated, as with the civil servants.
More often than not, civil society groups have had the cause to be worried about the waste in the public sector, but with little or no corresponding developments.
On Monday, former President Mahama took to his social media pages to lambast the Akufo-Addo government for ignoring his baby housing project at Saglemi to dig a hole for a national cathedral construction.
Though the assurance was that the construction was to be funded by the private sector, the government has given seed money in millions of Ghana cedis, and this is probably the reason why Mr. Mahama is livid.
In his opinion, the government could not claim there was no money to complete the housing project to reduce the over 1.7 million deficits when it was able to raise funds to dig a hole for the construction of a cathedral.
In as much as we do not hold brief for the government, we are surprised that Mr. Mahama is questioning the expenditure of public funds when information available about the same Saglemi Housing Project he is crying about, indicates that his government had spent US$196, 98% of the total US$200 million contract sum at the end of the stipulated execution period, but only 1,506 out of the 5,000 units had been initiated.
Even those 1,506 were not habitable because provision had been made for water, electricity and other related amenities.
According to the government, it would need a total investment of approximately 114 million to complete the outstanding work on the 1,506 units. We do not intend to go into the merits of the case, as it is currently before the court.
Though the government claimed it would be expensive to complete the Saglemi Project, it also cut the sod for a new one at Pokuase just last week.
The above are but a few instances where the usage of public funds has raised serious concerns under the leadership of both the NPP and NDC since the 4th Republic.
We are very concerned about the blame game between these two parties, who appear to be taking ordinary citizens, some of who struggle to feed themselves three times a day, for a ride.
When the NDC is in power, all their actions are right, and the NPP in opposition sees everything wrong, and vice versa.
We agree with former US President Abraham Lincoln when he said on July 27, 1848 in a speech he delivered at the House of Representatives that “the legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all or do so well for themselves.
We cannot, as a nation, continue to borrow money for development and end up with nothing to show but pile up the already elephant-sized debt. It has to stop. And we think that the Office of the Special Prosecutor and other responsible agencies must be wide awake to save this nation.
