‘Yentie Obiaaa’ president Akufo-Addo

As June 18 is globally recognised as Father’s Day, I take this singular opportunity to wish the first gentleman of our land, president Akufo-Addo, a Happy Father’s Day!

Despite my fledging political experience so far in the Fourth Republic of our nation, I have consciously observed, that your 7-year-old presidency has put Ghana on a prolonged ‘Reverse Gear’ concerning the gains chalked over the past years under 4 other presidents of our country.

Mr. president, this reverse year situation you put the country into is evident on various fronts, but not limited to, the worst performing economy. You been defeated by corruption itself and silenced also by the ranging galamsey menace attributable to your seemingly unsatisfactory efforts to finding lasting solutions to the above mentioned, especially galamsey and corruption cancers confronting us as a nation.

June 18, 2023 being Father’s Day, I would have wished, as a father myself, to pass a great verdict on your presidency so far; but I am afraid to indicate that your presidency has consistently proven to be a classical ‘Yentie Obiaaa’ Presidency!

Here are my candid observations buttressing my gloomy verdict on you with the title ‘Yentie Obiaaa’ president Akufo-Addo.

Ken Ofori-Atta still at post

There have been countless calls not only from the opposition NDC but also from other well- meaning CSOs as well as President Akufo-Addo’s MPs to sack non-performing Ken Ofori-Atta with immediate effect for conflict of interest issues, economic incompetence and consciously borrowing to push the country into a deep economic ditch now.

The Minority in Parliament went a notch higher to table a Censure motion to get rid of Ken Ofori-Atta as the Finance Minister but that yielded no tangible results.

When the rioting NPP MPs threatened to boycott government business until Ken Ofori-Atta was sacked, you promised to relieve him of his post when the IMF negotiations were concluded since Ken Ofori-Atta started the process. The first tranche of the IMF loan has already hit the account of the Central Bank of Ghana.

Yet, you are dead silent about the faith of Ken Ofori-Atta and he is still at post. Do I take this to mean that you have taken everyone including your NPP MPs for granted, Mr. president?

Government expenditure plus ‘Obolo’ size

Mr. president, in your first term, you told all Ghanaians that you were in a hurry to deliver for them and so, you needed a very large government of about 128 ministers and other appointees.

After producing a hung Parliament and living conditions of people not experiencing any improvement in your second term now, there have been numerous calls to drastically reduce your number of Ministers and Ministries that would have a direct impact on government expenditure, especially in these ungodly economic times.

As in the case of Ken Ofori-Atta, all genuine calls were ignored to downsize your ‘obolo’ government! You only attempted by carrying out a pseudo-ministerial reshuffle to fill in vacant positions left by aspiring presidential candidates of your Party. Even in some cases, you rather increased or elevated the number of some ministers.

At the time of restructuring of domestic debts and its resultant effects on individual bondholders, reducing the size of your bloated government would be earned you a listening or concerned President but you unfortunately let this opportunity pass. While your government has been calling for burden sharing by Ghanaians, you appear to be unwilling to equally demonstrate some form of burden sharing at the presidency by cutting costs and size. I find this highly unfortunate!

E-levy Act passage

Another classical reason why you have earned the title of ‘Yentie Obiaa’ President Akufo- Addo is the passage of the E-Levy law that was madly opposed by the majority of Ghanaians but it was passed by the NPP side of Parliament. Although the NPP MPs endorsed it, the bill first of all came from the presidency for consideration by Parliament.

Newly passed Excise Amendment act

As a prior action or condition for the approval of the IMF loan deal, the Majority in parliament passed three new Excise taxes on domestic goods despite stiff resistance. Now, Ghanaians are paying more taxes on common goods than before, which is the complete opposite of Mr. President’s campaign promise of moving away from taxation to production in his regime.

Scandal-riddled Cathedral building

The national project, which should have been spared any shadow of scandals, is the national Cathedral Project in my opinion. However, this project is indeed saddled with worrying scandals exposed by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa so far.

Despite these troubling exposes, President Akufo-Addo publicly said he would go ahead with the building of the Cathedral until he was hit with the reality of no funds. The President has called critiques of the Cathedral project names. This posture is not a posture of a listening president who promised to do better than the Mahama-led regime.

Conclusion

In as much as l understand that leaders sometimes take difficult decisions, those decisions taken must be in the interest of the people governed. The above-cited examples point to the fact that the decisions were not people-centered
considering the worsening living conditions and bad economic indicators worsened by the actors of this government in the first place. The posture of President Akufo-Addo has not helped to assuage the suffering of the masses.

Rather, some actions especially the domestic debt exchange programme was cruelly
implemented to pave way for the IMF approval and not considering the plight of the pensioners in particular.

The president has indeed earned unfortunately the ‘Yentie Obiaaa’ title. Ghana deserves a better and selfless leadership to unearth the hidden potentials of its rich human capital base but not a ‘Yentie Obiaa’ or we-will-not-listen-to-anyone leader.