Former President John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has blamed Ghana’s decline on the West African economic table to what he described as mismanagement by the government.

Ghana, which has long been West Africa’s second biggest economy, according to data from the International Monetary Fund, has slipped a step down to third in the region with US$75 billion behind Côte d’Ivoire , US$87 billion and Nigeria, US$253 billion.

At a rally in Yeji in the Bono East Region on his campaign tour of the area, the for­mer president said the current managers of the economy lack the gravitas to manage it out of the ditch they’ve driven it.

“Ghana was the second-largest economy after Nigeria, but this position has now been cheaply given away to neighbouring Ivory Coast.

“Ivory Coast has taken Ghana’s sec­ond-largest economy position due to gross mismanagement and a lack of vision from the current regime,” he said.

In his view the decline is down to corrup­tion, mismanagement, and incompetence exhibited by the New Patriotic Party govern­ment.

Mahama said his would-be govern­ment would revive the economy to create jobs for young people and competently manage the economy to place it back on the path of growth and prosperity.

“We will restore the country’s economic strength to ensure it remains competitive and appealing for investment,” Mahama assured.

The former president said he would lever­age on the abundance of cashew crop and establish processing factories as part of his plans to revitalise the economy.

He said as is being done with cocoa, same would be done for cashew farmers where the price of the produce would be regulated and determined by the government to avoid the situation where farmers are short­changed by buyers.

He said preparatory works for estab­lishment of cashew processing countries like the construction of roads, provision of water and adequate security would be prioritised to give investors reasons to invest in the area.

All suspended cocoa roads which were started by his previous regime, he said would be revisited to bring transportation relief to the people.

He accused the governing party of vote buying antics by using state resources to advance their political cause with a charge on President Akufo-Addo to direct his appointees from using DRIP machines for campaign.

“It’s the government’s money, funded by the taxes we all pay—whether you’re NPP, CPP, Christian, or Muslim—everyone con­tributes. They’ve used those taxes to import earth-moving equipment for road construction, and each district has been allocated some. But now, we’re seeing posters of NPP parliamentary candi­dates on the DRIP equipment.

“I want to remind Akufo-Addo and Bawumia that they serve the entire country, not just the NPP. The equip­ment doesn’t belong to the party; it be­longs to all Ghanaians. No one has the right to place their posters on the DRIP equip­ment. They must or­der the imme­diate removal of these posters, or we’ll be forced to take action ourselves,” he stated.