The ‘brighter days ahead’ mantra has been overused by the John Mahama-led administration since 2009 to deceive Ghanaians, the vice-presidential nominee of the New Patriotic Party, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said.

According to him, government needs to manage the economy with competence and keep corruption under check if it is going to make progress rather than resort to the ‘brighter days ahead’ mantra.

Speaking at a lecture on the state of the economy in Accra on Thursday September 8, Dr Bawumia said when Ghana discovered oil in 2007, there was an expectation of good things to happen to the country but after eight years of the NDC government, “today our economy is in decline, and we are a country at high risk of debt distress”.

In his view, “the fact is that you cannot achieve brighter days with mismanagement, incompetence and corruption”.

Addressing teeming supporters of the party and officials of the NPP, Dr Bawumia said: “President Mahama has talked about brighter days ahead every year since 2012, but it is all talk. What we have been given are dark days with ‘dumsor’, unemployment, high taxes, and high cost of living. The opportunity offered by the Jubilee oil discovery has been squandered by poor management. An interesting question to ask is: ‘What foundation has been laid that is going to bring about the brighter future?’ Is it ‘dumsor’? Is it the declining real GDP growth? Is it the declining agriculture and manufacturing output? How can President Mahama call this legacy a strong foundation?

“According to President Mahama and the NDC, they had laid a solid foundation between 2008 and 2012. In 2016, he is telling us that he has yet again spent 2014-2016 to lay a solid foundation. How many foundations is President Mahama going to lay? This is, therefore, a very weak foundation. It is a foundation of straw masked with concrete.”

According to the vice presidential aspirant of the NPP, the foundation for Ghana’s development was already laid by the Kufuor government, but Mr Mahama has spent the last eight years destroying the foundation and replacing it with a rather weak one.

“A mason who inherits a good foundation and spends eight years destroying it cannot be trusted to build the house. You cannot solve the problem by personal insults, distributing cars, bus branding, lies, or propaganda.”

Dr Bawumia said the NPP’s goal for the economy is to build the most business-friendly and people-friendly economy.