Minister for Government Communications has corrected a deliberate extortion to the effect that President John Dramani Mahama defended the impact of COVID-19 on Ghana’s economy while at Harvard University. But when speaking locally he blames the then government.
According to Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been running amok with this deliberate narrative for years but there is no iota of truth in it.
Ofosu, who is also spokesperson for the president said in the specific case of his boss’ speech, in 2022, he could speak to it eloquently because he was part of the speech writers.
He said nowhere did the then opposition leader hold brief for the Akufo-Addo government.
He said what actually happened was that, Mahama recognized the negative impacts of the pandemic on all economies globally including the cases of Africa and Ghana.
Following that acknowledgement closely, was the clear case of Ghana where the President said the country’s COVID-19 situation was exacerbated by reckless spending and borrowing.
The Abura Asebu Kwamankese constituency Member of Parliament (MP) added the NPP has since 2022 deliberately and cleverly dwelled on the paragraph of the speech acknowledging the impact on the economies to serve their political course.
He said even though he and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have correct this deliberate extortion, the NPP has conveniently ignored it.
“So you find that even before the elections and now, they falsely attribute a certain justification of COVID to President Mahama in the speech that he read at Harvard. I’m in a position to know because I contributed to writing that speech.
So I know that when you read the speech, the President rightly acknowledged that COVID had had an impact on the world. Nobody can dispute that. So the President was not going to stand in Harvard and dispute that. But in the paragraphs that followed that particular paragraph, the President said we were hardest hit because it exposed fundamental flaws and mismanagement in our economy. It is in that speech.
Nobody can go read it. I finally have it on my machine. But because of time, there’s no point going through it again. But nobody can actually go read it and read the whole speech if they think what I’m saying is not true”, he said while making a speech on Good Morning Ghana on Metro TV.
He accused the NPP of conveniently cutting a portion of the speech to advance their agenda.
“So that attempt to justify your… And in fact, sometimes they cut it and put it out as though it is a recent speech. It’s a speech delivered in 2022 or thereabouts at the height of COVID. So that matter must be put to rest. President Mahama has never held brief for the Akufo-Addo administration on COVID. He said that COVID had affected the world. But our situation was exacerbated by economic mismanagement. And it is true. And how do you check mismanagement? It is the deficit”.
Kwakye Ofosu was rebutting earlier submission by his fellow panel member and former Minister for Health, Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, who accused the NDC and President Mahama of playing politics with the impact of the pandemic, citing the speech of the President at the University.
He said the NPP cannot blame the NDC for their predicament at the last election because the electorate saw through their misgovernance and showed their abhorrence at the 2024 general election and not because of what the now governing party said in the past.
“Moro, this point about COVID, you see, it’s a hard-to-read excuse. In fact I didn’t want to go back, because we’ve touched it down on this programme many, many times. In fact, the verdict of the election is that we could not buy that excuse. Because, you see, the average voter is rational. Forget about questions arising out of emotional attachment to parties. But the average voter is rational. When they go to vote, they do a careful assessment.
They know what government is at fault for and what government cannot be blamed for. You see, they are just like us. We only have the benefit of coming to sit on TV. We are by no means the most intelligent people in this country. So let us not underestimate their capacity to assess the situation. If COVID was the first measure that they say exists and had the impact that they say it had, they wouldn’t lose the election. People would see. Because people felt COVID. They did not. People died from COVID. There were people who were hospitalized. People’s businesses were disrupted by COVID. So they know. And they wouldn’t take it out on you” the Minister explained.
He compared Ghana’s situation to neighbouring and far countries saying even though COVID-19 affected every economy but in the case of Ghana, there was total mismanagement on the part of the government and not because of the pandemic.
“But people know that COVID only became a smokescreen for you to be reckless. It is a reason why when you compare that to all our neighbors in West Africa, in South Africa, we have the worst economic outcomes. If you take out Zimbabwe, that has historic economic downturn. Ours was the worst. In the whole of Africa, we defaulted on our debts. Our inflation was above the roof. Our debt distribution was above the roof. Our deficits were huge. We had a deficit of 15.1%, which was one of the highest, if not the highest, in Africa. COVID did not go past any other country.
There were countries where they lost up to a million people. Italy and other places, they were dying in thousands by the day. Their economy didn’t collapse. It was because they had fundamentally robust structures that are mapping the economy. And then when COVID struck, they made the right adjustment. But you didn’t do”.
By Gifty Boateng