Bolgatanga Central MP Isaac Adongo and former Deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, who speak for the Minority on finance and economy, do not pay attention to detail, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s Economic Adviser Dr Gideon Boako has said.

In his view, were Mr Ato Forson and Mr Adongo paying attention to detail, they would not be attacking Dr Bawumia the way they do as far as the management of the economy is concerned.

“… You see, what is most important is that people should pay attention to detail. If you don’t pay attention to detail, and you look at things the superficial way, you may get things wrong and that is why I pointed out to my colleagues in the NDC, Ato Forson and Adongo that they just don’t pay attention to detail.

“It is not as if I want to slur them, but, of course, I’m a technical person, when you get it wrong I have to point it out to you that you got it wrong. We should pay attention to detail, if you pay attention to detail on what this government has been able to do, in seven months of implementing its first budget, you should not be surprised that Ghana is heading in the right direction.”

Meanwhile, Dr Boako has revealed that he advised the Mahama administration on the economy even while he was a PhD student and, thus, wonders why now that the National Democratic Congress is in opposition, its members are raising doubts about his (Dr Boako’s) competence to serve as the Vice-President’s Economic Adviser.

The Oxford- and Yale-trained economist told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Monday, 15 November just minutes before Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta presented the 2018 Budget to parliament, that: “I have been a university lecturer, lecturing at the KNUST, and, so, I joined the Vice-President somewhere in March and I was supporting the economic management team with technical assistance, developing economic policies and other general policies.”

According to him, “The nomenclature or the title is – you say Economic Adviser; what if it had been Economist or Senior Economist or whatever [at the office of the Vice-President?] It doesn’t change anything and that is why nobody completes PhD and comes to teach and he’s asked of his teaching experience. Nobody does that. When I completed my PhD and got a job, nobody asked me of my teaching experience because that is part of the training.

He then gave details of some economic advisory work he did for the Mahama administration while pursuing his PhD.

“Even while I was a student, I was advising the previous government. They didn’t know that it was me. Ato Forson and Co., when he was the [Deputy] Finance Minister, if he remembers in January 2015, we did a research, myself and my professor from Oxford University and they sponsored us to come to the Finance Ministry to present that research to them on Exchange Rate Volatility. They didn’t know me.

“When I was out of the country, I was doing research to advise the previous government,” he emphasised.

“I was working as a researcher, I’m an economic researcher and even just next month, 1 December, the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) is sponsoring me to Tanzania, Arusha. There is a research I’m doing for the African Economic Research Consortium. I’ve been part of a lot of research bodies internationally; the South African Reserve Bank, I used to do some work for them, so, even as a student I was researching and working for the World Bank and others, as part of the projects that you do as a PhD student, if you are lucky, and, so, for them to have said that I did not merit [that position], I don’t get it.

“Even the World Bank Governor has an adviser. But you see, to be an adviser or to be a technical person, you don’t need to go through so much as the PhD system is rigorous. If you go to a good school and you get a good training. And some of us had the training,” Dr Boako noted.

According to him, the Minority’s potshots at the Vice-President on economic issues are baseless and ill-informed, adding that in his estimation, Dr Bawumia is one of only two topnotch economists he admires in the entire country.

“We appreciate when people talk, but you want people to talk based on an informed point of view. I mean you may want to, for political reasons, try to slur the Vice-President’s economic prowess. … For me I may single out two economists I respect in this country: Prof Augustine Ofosu and Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. If I want to single out two Ghanaian economists that I have high respect for, Prof Augustine Ofosu of ISSER and Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. They are not just theoretical economists but also practical economists,” Dr Boako noted.