Dr Bawumia chides govt for unfulfilled promises
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has challenged the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be transparent in their plans for a possible retrenchment in the Civil Service after the 2016 elections as part of the IMF deal with the government.
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According to the party, it did not understand why the government would want to wait until 2017 to implement the plan for the layoff of workers, if it would be ready this month.
“Isn’t this reform supposed to help this struggling economy? Why the delay in implementing it if it is so good for the economy? The government is not being transparent on this issue.
“It is only because this government does not want workers to know the truth about what they have agreed to do before the election in 2016,” the running mate to the presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, said at an event to respond to the 2016 budget, as well as state the NPP’s alternative vision for the country.
IMF deal
The IMF Executive Board approved a $950-million loan for Ghana to support a reform programme aimed at faster growth and job creation, while protecting social spending.
Apart from reforming some public sector organisations, the main pillars of the IMF programme are structural reforms to strengthen public finances and fiscal discipline by improving budget transparency, cleaning up and controlling the payroll, right-sizing the Civil Service and improving revenue collection.
The government, in an 87-page report on the IMF deal, indicated that it would undertake, with the assistance of its development partners, a comprehensive plan to rationalise the size and increase the efficiency of the Civil Service and allied services on the payroll.
According to the document, "the government will undertake, with the assistance of development partners, a comprehensive plan to rationalise the size and increase the efficiency of the Civil Service and allied services on the payroll. The related-strategic plan will be ready in December 2015, the results of which will inform the actual rationalisation of staff, which is expected to begin in 2017”.
President Mahama denies
But President John Dramani Mahama, in April this year, dismissed assertions by the NPP that as part of IMF conditionalities for the bailout, the country’s public sector workforce would be reduced.
The President, who spoke at a national conference of public chief directors, chief executives and chairpersons of governing boards and councils of the Public Services Commission in Koforidua, said the position taken by the government was to streamline the public sector and the wage bill and stated that staff rationalisation was ongoing to ensure that the requisite human resource base was spread throughout the sectors and across the country.
The explanation appeared not to have satisfied the NPP, which had asked for a full disclosure on the issue in the spirit of transparency and accountability.
Corruption
Dr Bawumia described the government as corrupt and only competent in many ways, including create, loot and share, mismanagement of the economy, propaganda, perpetuating the energy crisis, cancelling teacher and nursing trainee allowances and maintaining an unstable interest rate.
In a statement that touched on almost all sectors of the economy, the NPP’s presidential running mate diagnosed the challenges facing the country to include problems of inclusive economic growth to address unemployment, decline in the agricultural sector, rising cost of living, collapsing businesses, the energy crisis, unsustainable debt, poor infrastructure, rising interest rates, exchange rate depreciation, rising fiscal and balance of payment deficits and corruption.
Energy crisis
At the event, which was attended by NPP bigwigs, including the Minority Leader in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu; the acting National Chairman, Mr Freddie Blay; the National Organiser, Mr John Boadu; the National Youth Organiser, Mr Sammy Awuku, and some members of its Parliamentary Caucus — Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, Ms Esther Dapaah and Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto — Dr Bawumiah rolled out a long list of failed deadlines by the President and government functionaries.
Analysing the cost implications of the Karpower barge, he said the deal was a bad one and not value for money.
“A 225mw plant like the Karpower plant will cost some $225 million and we will own it – with the unit cost of a megawatt plant at $1million. Under the Karpower deal, we will pay for the power from the barge for the next 10 years, whether we use it or not,” he said.
According to Dr Bawumiah, although President Mahama had promised to end the energy crisis even before the 2012 elections, the government had not prioritised the challenges in the energy sector as economical but rather an election tool, taking cues from President Mahama’s pronouncement in Tamale that the crisis would end before the 2016 elections.
“They care little about the businesses ‘dumsor’ has collapsed or the jobs ‘dumsor’ has collapsed in the past four years. Rather, their major concern is what can be used come the election year and what cannot be used. Solving ‘dumsor’ clearly has not been a priority these past four years and may only become a priority as we get close to the elections,” he said.
He said the ongoing consultations by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) were a charade and public deception, since the government had already committed, under the IMF programme, to increasing utility tariffs.
Agriculture
He wondered why the government claimed it was transforming lives when agriculture was growing in negatives and most of the government’s policies in the sector had failed.
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Budget, debts and borrowing
He said the 2016 budget was not different from the 2012 election year budget in the way government had padded the allocation to the office of government machinery to build its chest for the 2016 elections.
Critiquing the 2016 budget, he said although the NPP was happy with the government’s declaration of intent to promote export-led growth through identifying and promoting agricultural produce, it was not clear by which method it wanted to achieve its object.
“The stagnation in agriculture found expression in the importation of $1.5 billion of foodstuffs into the country in 2014, against a food import bill of $600 million in 2008. The import of fish, poultry, tomatoes, cooking oil, has all doubled between 2008 and 2015,” he said.
Dr Bawumiah took a swipe at the government’s borrowing spree and said the “more than GH¢91 billion increase in the debt stock over seven years represents an increase in the debt by 957.9 per cent over the seven-year period”.
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He said in 2015 the GH¢9.6 billion allocated to interest payment on the debt stock was about 3.4 times the entire allocations to the six key ministries — Roads and Highways, Trade and Industry, Food and Agriculture, Water Resources, Works and Housing, Youth and Sports and Transport — which had been allocated GH¢2.1 billion.
NPP’s solutions and policies
Dr Bawumiah said to turn the country’s fortune around, an NPP government would, among other things, ensure that the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) played an important role in the petrochemical industry in Ghana.
“We will restore the teacher and nursing training allowances and are still committed to our programme of free senior high school education for all students at that level,” he added.
He said to reduce unemployment; an NPP government would enhance employment Tax Credit Scheme to provide incentives for companies employing fresh graduates.
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He said an NPP government would abolish Value Added Tax (VAT) on financial services and real estate sales reduce withholding taxes to spur production and also abolish taxes on private tertiary institutions. Unsustainable debt, poor infrastructure, rising interest rates, exchange rate depreciation, rising fiscal and balance of payment deficits and corruption.