100 days in every government’s life is not enough to judge the government. You can always do so when a government tells you, I will do this in 100 days and so when that is done, then you say, let me assess you by the promises that you made. Now, in this government, the only thing that I heard was Dr. Bawumia speaking on radio when he said that, they are going to restore teacher trainee allowance in 100 days. And so if teacher training allowance has been restored in a 100 days and a restoration not by word of a policy saying we have restored it but a restoration as in monies hitting the accounts of these students then I say that is an achievement. But this morning, I would want to premise my argument or my take on what I believe an achievement is. Achievement connotes a final accomplishment of something noteworthy after much effort and often in spite of obstacles and discouragement. Please note that because, whatever I’m going to say is premised on this one.
Now let’s get into the achievements of the NPP. I have already told you that 100 days is a short time. But since Dr. Bawumia is trumpeting, let’s look at some of them. He says 456 million Ghana cedis has been allocated for one district, one factory. Okay, so the money has been released, isn’t it? Fantastic that I admit. But how does that constitute an achievement when Ghanaians are yet to feel the impact of that. Can somebody tell me, have any of these projects started? You see, coming to tell me that you have allocated that amount of money is not an achievement for me until I see that money being put to use and Ghanaians employed, engage in the construction of these factories and two, beginning to work in these factories, there is no achievement. So what have you done? Haven’t we seen instances in this country where we are told of monies having been released? I mean government increased National service allowance and what happened? So the point is not just coming out, to say I have increased this or I have set aside this fund.
I agree with the likes of Dr. Kumbour when I spoke to him on Hot issues, he made a valid point when he said, look in coming out with your achievements, you should be able to tell us how that is impacting people. It is not just coming to tell us I have achieved this or I have released this amount of money. How is that impacting me? And so if you tell me we have released money for planting for foods and jobs and that is going to employ about two hundred and fifty thousand people in the first year, has that employed the people? Employ the people, come back and tell me, I have employed two hundred and fifty thousand Ghanaians and then that becomes an achievement for you. So a release of 456 million Ghana cedis for a one district, one factory, for me is no achievement. As we speak nobody has started benefiting from the one district, one factory. Start the factories, let the people get to work, once they have started working or once they have started the construction of the factories and people have jobs in ad hoc capacity, then we can say, you are beginning to do something.
And what is this re-profiling of debt? You are borrowing, I thought Mahama said smart borrowing and you questioned it. Now re-profiling of debt has become an achievement all of a sudden. It is just like the days when we said; dreaming in itself was an achievement. How we can lower the bar in this country. And there is a talk of moving economic policy from taxation to production. Okay, we have reduced taxes and what has happened, can somebody tell me? We decided to scrap a market toll levy on kayayies, and so yes that has helped them, maybe yes it has but what about the other ones? How has that helped? Well, I can say that, there has been some reduction in fuel after those taxes were reduced. So that’s okay and I will give that to them. But that is not so great an achievement. That’s not something you come and talk about.
If you go to creative arts and tourism, with tourism in particular, it says that a safety audit unit has been established and that is an achievement because you went through a lot of stress to do that. What did the safety audit unit do? Can somebody tell me? Look, let us raise the bar in this country. Let us raise the bar in our political discourse. Let us not always lower it. Ghanaians deserve better
By Winston Amoah
Winston is the morning show host of 3FM. The piece was delivered live on air.