The 2012 presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Hassan Ayariga, has blamed Ghanaians for the current economic challenges facing the country for not listening to the right candidates during the 2012 general election.

Mr. Ayariga noted that Ghanaians are the cause of the challenges facing the country because "Ghanaians are not listening to the right people,” but they rather listen and vote for their political party’s interest instead of vision and strategies the parties have for the country.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Heritage after a short ceremony at his Kokomlemle office in Accra to mark 22 years of the PNC’s existence, the former flagbearer blamed Ghanaians for the current economic challenges and stressed that the country lacks vision.

The former presidential candidate, who looked disappointed in the leadership of the country over the years, noted that “for the next 30 years, we don’t even know where we are going as a country.

He stated that for the country to come out of the current challenges, Ghanaians ought to develop a long-term national vision and task politicians to develop strategies and tactics to achieve the vision rather than ask politicians to come up with their own vision and strategies for the country which have never worked.

Mr. Ayariga further suggested that political power ought to have been separated from economic power to enable technocrats handle the economic development of the country.

He further rubbished the National Economic Forum held at Senchi in the Eastern region saying it was a “waste of money.”

This he said was because he made similar recommendations during the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) presidential debate prior to the 2012 December general election.

Mr. Ayariga said all that was agreed upon at Senchi was contained in his presentation at the IEA debate which he could have given to the government for free rather than waste people’s time and scarce resources to organize an economic forum.

Days after the economic forum ended, many analysts including retired diplomat and statesman, K.B Asante, have described as “terrible” the presentation of the full report on the Senchi Consensus.

Mr. Asante said the 22-point consensus was agreed upon several years ago, but lack of political will has delayed its manifestation.

Touching on the current power crisis, Ayariga noted that all successive governments have failed to tackle the situation and added that, “we don’t even know where we are going; how then can we know how to get there?

“It is not only the present government that has failed, but all successive governments have failed to tackle the energy problems of the country,” he said.

He said with long term plans formulated by technocrats and politicians, Ghanaians could then task the politicians to demonstrate how they intend to achieve the vision before giving the mandate to govern the country.