Buy Mills Get Rawlings Free -Part 3 [NDC?s BOGOF Idea]
Whilst you looked away we discussed parts 1 and 2 of this article in which we looked at the legacy of Rawlings and his motive for choosing Mills as his preferred successor. Now we have Professor Mills, whether we love him or loathe him as one of the contenders for the presidency of Ghana in the forthcoming election. In fairness to the man, let us look at his credentials as a person and let us not be biased about the undeniable fact that he is a poodle and will sing his masters? [the Rawlingses] voice. He has been lauded as a legal and economic mogul who is going to turn the fortunes of the NDC in the economic management of the nation round.Professor Mill was the Vice President of Ghana from 1996-2000 and was in charge of the economic management unit of the last NDC administration. This meant that Hons. Kwame Peprah and Selormey, the Minister and Deputy Minister, respectively, of Finance would have reported to him en-route to the President. He would have had the first insight into the budget before reporting to his Master and Lord. It is therefore fair to say that he would have been privy to all the economic successes and failures of the NDC from 1996-2000. Let us look at the facts and figures of Professor Mills? economic incompetence then: 1. Accra (Greater Accra), 27th October 19999 - Mr. Victor Selormey, Deputy Minister of Finance on Wednesday told Parliament the economy was in the red. The deputy minister admitted that all sectors of the economy would be adversely affected at least over the next 12 to 18 months. For instance, he said, real gross domestic product projection which was to hit 5.5 per cent has to be revised downwards to 4.4 per cent. [General News of Wednesday, 27 October 1999] 2. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) has stated that the only way to save the country?s universities from total collapse is to make parents contribute a little more to the purchase of goods and services that go into direct teaching and learning. According to the committee, this has become imperative because government subvention to the universities over the years has been totally inadequate. A position paper of the CVCP on funding tertiary education, dated September 30, 1999 said in most cases, only about 20 per cent of budgetary provisions for the universities are released each year. 3. On foreign exchange receipts, Mr. Victor Selormey said for the first half of 1999, foreign exchange receipts totalled $322.2 million as against $417.6 million realised during the corresponding period of 1998 whilst the country?s external debt including obligations to the International Monetary Fund was estimated at $5,551million at the end of June, this year, which was $283.2 million lower by the end of December 1998. [Source: Daily Graphic 28th October 1999] 4. Accra (Greater Accra) 19 May 1999 Nii Okaija Adamafio, Minister of the Interior, on Tuesday stated that inadequate budgetary allocation is the basic constraint facing most projects under his ministry. 5. ACCRA, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Ghana's government, hurt by falls in the prices of the country's main exports, faces tough budget decisions for 2000, made all the more difficult because it is an election year, Deputy Finance Minister Victor Selormey said. Ghana has cut its economic growth forecast for 1999 to 4.4 percent from 5.5 percent, and 2000 will also prove difficult because of low cocoa and gold prices, as well as the increased cost of oil imports, Selormey told Reuters in a recent interview. The government expects a funding gap of $183 million for 2000 and sees no easy way of filling it. ?We are between the devil and the deep blue sea,'' he said. ``Decisions will be taken before the end of the year.? These are just a few snippets of the legacy of Preacher Mills economics and finance team as they prepared to leave a doomed economy in the hands of the next government. This is the same man who is coming round to say he cares. He did not care enough in 1999 and allowed the cedi to fall by 70% against the dollar in one year and inflation and interest rates spiraled to over 40%.
When a minister refers to Ghana?s economy as ?between the devil and the deep blue sea?, and the man who overseas this rot comes to you eight years down the line to say I care, he surely must think Ghanaians are fools. Professor Mills cannot be trusted with Ghana?s economy. He toyed with our economy in the same way as his lord and master systematically destroyed Ghana?s economy and image. To quote from an article on ghanaweb in 2006, ?But indeed, the evidence that chairman Rawlings? true legacy lies in his acts of destruction is abundant and overwhelming to the honest and truthful. He was born to destroy. He destroyed Ghanaian Industries; destroyed our Transportation system, including the OSA, Ghana Railways, and Ghana Airways; he destroyed our academic institutions and turned them into institutions that churn out more dog-chain sellers than intellectuals; he destroyed the Ghanaian entrepreneurial spirit by actively working to collapse Ghanaian-owned businesses in their own land of birth; and finally he actively worked to literally destroy human lives by subjecting noble citizens to torture, murder, and gross human rights abuses. Today Rawlings wants to choose Ghana?s next leader so that that leader would pursue the ideals of his June 4th and 31st December murderous escapade. The blood of the people that he spilled on June 4th, 1979 was not enough he needs more blood to quench or calm his insatiable thirst for the blood of the innocent. He wants to destroy again? [www.ghanaweb.com: Feature Article of Thursday, 20 July 2006]
Professor Mills started his campaign last year with a very patronizing ?I care for you? message which I understand he took from door to door [I wonder which door because he did not come to mine]. The message of care must have a ?care plan? which sadly did not and still does not have one. Professor Mills can be likened to a preacher man saying turn the other cheek without explaining or indeed equipping his Christian folks the strength and energy to absorb the virtue of forgiveness. And even as a preacher man, Prof. Mills does it poorly. Jesus? ?care? message on the famous ?who is my neighbour? parable had certain hard specifics. Examples of the specifics were, feeding the hungry, providing health care, clothing the naked and visiting prisoners and setting the captives free. Preacher Mills? rather patronizing message lacks any such specifics. Instead he attacks the NPP policies of feeding school children, providing health care for the people through the NHIS, macro financing and repealing the Criminal Libel Law to save the number of journalists who would have gone to jail. How can one preach an ?I care for you? without acknowledging these social programmes that are built on the concept of social justice and care. But the truth of the matter is even if Preacher Mills believes in the ethics of the NPP social programmes; the devil in his mind will not let him.
This is a man who styles himself ?asomdweehene? [A peaceful King] and yet begins the year 2008 beating war drums. We cannot reconcile this bipolarity in Fiifi Atta-Mills except to find the reason that he has a master to serve and his master tells him to beat war drums. From an ?I care for you? door to door message in the morning he comes to beat war drums in the afternoon threatening to turn Ghana into Kenya if the NDC do not win in the 2008 elections. Typically and as usual Prof Mills is foolishly conveying the evil thoughts of his master and lord JJ Rawlings, who is afraid if his party fails to win, his luck would be running out. So the NDC started the trouble in Anloga and Bawku, and in both cases intentionally blamed the NPP government for masterminding something that the NDC had strategically game planned. But Ghanaians are not fools and will decide ?our presidency in PEACE not WAR? as someone remarked. This is a man who has no say in who his running mate will be. In over one year since he was elected he has not had the confidence to name his running mate and it takes a statement from Victor Smith, Rawlings aide to clear the air about that subject. He is so much under the control of Rawlings to the extent that Victor Smith plays on his indecisiveness. We need a strong leader who can move the nation forward to the next level of development and that man cannot be Atta-Mills. Our Constitution?s framers had the sense to limit one person?s presidential influence to a maximum of eight years. We cannot afford another 4 or 8 years of economic rot under a back-door Rawlings? regime.
It will be wrong for Ghanaians to accept the NDC gamble because
- We have come too far with democracy to return.
- We have come too far with macro-stability to return.
- We have come too far with freedom of speech to return.
- We have come too close to meeting the Millennium Development Goals of 2015 to return.
- We have come too far to achieving a perfect health insurance policy to return.
- We have come too far to micro financing to return.
- We have come too far to youth employment programme to return.
- We have come too far to infrastructural development to return.
- We have come too far to Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education to return.
- We have come too far to free feeding for school children to return
- We have come too far to achieving freedom and justice, the ideal of our forebears when they gained us our independence to return.
[Watch out for Part 4] God bless our homeland Ghana
Kwesi Atta-Krufi Hayford
Email: hattakrufi@hotmail.com
