HUMPHREY ATTACKS Npp Economy Bunkum

Many Ghanaians are disappointed and fed up with the NPP chronic lies and their empty promises. History will no doubt regard Mr. Kufour’s presidency as the weakest and most corrupt Ghana has ever had to endure. Talk of corruption, lies, thievery, kickbacks, nepotism, favoritisms, armed robbery, cheating, looting, and you have Mr. Kufour’s own party members agree with me that Mr.Kufour reins supreme in those areas as well as his autocracy.

Recently, the Narcotic Peddling People (NPP) issued a press release titled-Ghana: Economic Achievements are Real- in what he said was a response to an earlier statement by the NDC; the release paddled half truth and twisted facts on what obtained in Ghana prior to January 2001 and the achievements of the Kufuor regime. WE ARE TIRED OF YOUR BUNKUM NPP…Mr. K4 and his people are just stealing our money and chopping it Waa Waa waa. Oh yes, the NPP brigands and highway robbers are selling our national assets in order to pocket huge kickbacks.

What the Narcotic Peddling Party did was the true nature of the Danquah-Busia tradition of demonizing their predecessor regimes. They did it to Kwame Nkrumah and the CPP regime after the overthrow of the Nkrumah regime in 1966. We were told that before the 1966 coup, Ghana was on the threshold of economic collapse; that Nkrumah had taken £50, 000 as pocket money on his trip to Hanoi and they even went to the extent of cartooning Nkrumah kneeling before the body of a dead woman at the Flagstaff House on the instructions of Kankan Nyame of Guinea! They rubbished all the achievements of Nkrumah after they had failed to stop the United States and the British governments from providing financial support for the construction of the Akosombo dam. What a pity!!! History is repeating itself because the NPP is doing the same to former president Rawlings. Today, they are depending on juju …they travel to many African countries in search of juju. TSOFATSEMEI….LOVERS OF JUJU…. ODINSINI….Wonders shall never end. Juju does not have eternal life. NPP will perish in due time.

Today, I wish to provide salient facts of Ghana's situation at the time the NDC left office in January 2001, and expose the bunkum supposed achievements of the Kufuor regime. I have a rudimentary knowledge of economics.

ECONOMY -SALIENT FACTS

In 1998, the world price of cocoa averaged about $1500. The great party NDC budget for 1999 was therefore based on the postulation that at least the price would remain at the same level throughout that year. Unfortunately, the price of cocoa began to decline on the world market from the middle of 1999 which was not the fault of the NDC. We all know that prices of our export commodities are being determined by the world market. The decline continued with the price hitting $989 per tonne in July 2000. By December 2000, the price of cocoa had reached a 27-year low of $674 per tonne on the world market. In the case of gold, our other major export commodity, the world market price declined from an average of $387 per ounce in 1996 to $285 per ounce in 2000.

The decline in the world market prices of gold and cocoa occurred at a time when the world oil price was hitting what was considered then as world record highs after 1981 of US $35/barrel. Within the context of the external conditions, the economy was buffeted from every known economic angle in 1999 and 2000. Before the deterioration in external conditions, we had achieved a single digit rate of inflation of 9.8% in 1998 and the lending rates were around 20 percent, at a time when we were servicing all our external obligations as and when they became due. HOW DO YOU WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO CONTROL THE ECONOMY?

Given the external conditions, there was a shortage of foreign exchange and demand for external resources continued to increase. In the situation, the NDC government had no choice but to permit market forces to determine the value of the cedi. This was required by the need for a discreet management of the economy that would necessitate continuing to pay the cocoa farmers at least 70 per cent of the world market price as well as provide incentives for non -traditional exporters to earn enough to cover at least their local costs. This also applied to the firms that were in the gold mining industry. NPP YOUR LYING DAYS ARE NUMBERED…ALAKPATOR…

According to COCOBOD sources as contained in a speech recently delivered by a deputy chief executive Mr. Fofie, in the past ten years, the highest cocoa FOB price paid to the cocoa farmer was 74 per cent in 1999/2000 under the NDC. In spite of the record earnings from cocoa since 2001, John Julor Kufour promise of C 9,500,000 per tonne from the next cocoa season does not equal our performance. NDC ALL THE WAY…

The decline in earnings from gold and cocoa was due to external forces which the NDC has no control of. To say that external resources declined due to mismanagement and corruption is an abject lie. WE KNOW THEIR TRICKS NOW…THE ELECTORATES WILL SHOW THEM THEIR CRACHY POWERS COME DECEMBER… No institution of repute in the world financial system ever had cause to complain about our management of the economy. NPP AND THEIR PATHOLOGICAL LIES…

THE ECONOMY UNDER KUFUOR

According to the President in his last state of Nation Address, external resources that have accrued to his government through HIPC and debt forgiveness is $8 billion. Since January 2001, the world market price of cocoa has been increasing. It went up by 50 per cent in February 2001, and then up again by 70 per cent by March 2002. Due to the crisis in Ivory Coast, the price of cocoa on the world market reached $2400 in March 2003. After slight dips in 2005 and 2006, the world price hit $2017 in June this year. It now hovers around $1,900 per tonne. Given the average yield of 550, 000 tonne per annum since 2001, due to the hi-tech method which was pioneered by Cashpro, a buying agency in 2000, and an average price of about $1800, the NPP government has earned an extra $3.85 billion from cocoa alone in the past seven years, using a price differential of $1000 between the 1999/2000 and the 2006/2007 world market prices.

In the case of gold, the world market price concaved to $265.5 in December 2001, from the level of $285.18 per ounce in December 2000. The price has since recovered and has been hitting record levels. In 2002, the price of gold increased by 14.4 per cent and within 2002-2005 by 43.5 per cent. In December 2006, the price of gold reached $700 per ounce for the first time since 1981. It now hovers around $800, reaching a 26 year high of $830 on November 6th, 2007.From a price of about $300 in 2002, the average price of gold increased to $660 in 2006. The average for 2007 exceeds $700 per ounce.

Within the past seven and a half years, Ghana average output of gold has remained at 2 million ounces. With an average price of about $500 since 2003, as against $250 during the days of the NDC, the K4 regime has earned as extra $250 for each ounce of gold. The extra earnings from gold that has accrued to the Kufuor regime from gold is around $3.5 billion. OYIWA… KICKBACKS NIE…K4 NIE…

In spite of the record earnings from cocoa and gold, the Kufuor regime has within the past seven and a half years, borrowed about $7.8 billion from external sources according to parliamentary records.

The total amount of extra resources that has accrued to the Kufuor regime since January 2001 is over $20 billion and there is practically nothing to show for it. Yet, the NPP Chairman had the impudence to talk about an external debt of $5.8 billion in 2001. The external debt of $5.8 billion represented the total external debt of the country accumulated then since independence in 1957. TODAY THE EXTERNAL DEBT IS $7.8 BILLION….what a shame…even though all of our debt was forgiven. These thieves accumulate all the $7.8 billion in just seven years.

At the appropriate time the NDC and the people of Ghana will demand a full account of how the over $20 billion has been used and for whose benefit. THIS CROOKS DE CHOP GHANA MONEY NYAFU NYAFU….

PRICES AND THE COST OF LIVING

According to the NPP Chairman, the minimum wage under the NDC was a miserable $0.6 of a dollar. Today, the minimum wage has risen to $2.1 dollar he claims. But what is the real value of the $2.1 dollars the least paid workers earns in year 2007 prices?

A survey of market prices will give an insight. In December 2000, the price of a bag of cement was 17,000 cedis. Today, the price is 90,000. In 2000, the price of a small- size tin of milk was 800 cedis; it is ¢6,500 now. In 2000, the price of a gallon of petrol was ¢6400; today it is over 50,000 cedis. At the time we were leaving office, the price of a 22.5kg LPG was 15, 000 cedis. Under Kufuor charge the price is now ¢106, 000. A loaf of bread that sold for 2,000 cedis in December 2000 now sells for ¢10, 000. A kilo of salmon which sold for 5, 000 cedis under the NDC now sells for ¢20,000. A crate of eggs (36) that sold for ¢12, 000 in December 2000 now sells for 42,000 cedis. Since Mr. Manu and his buddies now measure their assets in the dollar let us state that by his own figures, LPG (22.5 kg) that sold for $2 in December 2000 now sells for $15..What type of macroeconomic stability churns out a six- fold increase in prices in just six years?

All over the country, the prices of basic commodities have gone up at least five fold on the average within the past six and half years. In reality, therefore, the so-called $2.1 dollars minimum wage is worth $0.4 of a dollar in 2000 constant prices. If Ghanaians are complaining about the high cost of living, it is because their living standards have declined by a third within only six years. NPP NYEBAAGBEWO….NPP MU BE KU YEN….NPP YOU GO KILL US WITH YOUR CHRONIC LIES…

COCOA PRODUCER PRICE

If at world market price of around $750 in 2000, the NDC government paid the cocoa farmer 151, 755 cedis, per bag, then at the price of $1800 on the world market and with an exchange rate of 9,500 cedis against the dollar as against 6,800 cedis in 2000, the NPP government should have been paying the cocoa farmers at least 750,000 cedis per bag or ¢ 12,000,000 per tonne to meet the minimum standard we achieved during the 1999/2000 season. Under the NPP, the cocoa farmer has been short-changed. Yet, Mr. Mac Manu claims they have done much more for the cocoa farmer than any other government in the past. However in spite of rising world market prices of cocoa, the NPP government kept the price paid to farmers at ¢ 9,000,000 per tonne for 2003/4, 2004/5 and 2005/6. It was increased by a mere ¢100,000 to ¢ 9,150,000 in the 2006/7 season.

The cocoa farmer’s bonus scheme was introduced by the NDC government in 1996 when cocoa prices started recovering in 1994/95 after low prices in the early 1990. The 19 billion cedis we paid in 1995 is currently worth about 190 cedis billion which is almost a third of what the Kufuor regime has paid in six years with unprecedented high levels of cocoa in almost 30 years. Had we been fortunate to obtain the record high levels, we would form the records, have done twice the bonus payments the NPP Government has made thus far to cocoa farmers.

Between 2001 and 2006, utility tariffs went up three fold. With the PURC granting the utility companies a 35 percent increase in tariffs, the price increase has risen to four fold. In cedi terms, once again, Mr. Mc Manu and the NPP failed to concede that the single room for which the teacher paid a monthly rent of 15,000cedis in December, 2000 now goes for 200, 000cedis while the rent for a chamber and hall has also increased from 30,000cedis per month to 300,000cedis under Kufuor watch. Even using the low five fold increase in general price levels as the sole indicator, the 1,746, 796 cedis is worth just 350,000 in December 2000 prices.

The difference is not marginal. In December 2000, the difference of 64,115 cedis could buy 10 gallons of petrol; today it buys less than 1.5gallons of petrol; it could pay the rent for a chamber and hall for 2 months, now it is good enough for the rent for less than one week for the same accommodation. It appears to me that K4 and Akufo-Addo does not fully understand how workers and the good people of Ghana are suffering under the NPP government. VOTE NDC AND ATTA-MILLS FOR A BETTER GHANA…I WILL SAY IT AGAIN”IF GOLD (KUFOUR) ROT, WHAT WILL IRON (AKUFO-ADDO) DO”. IF AKUFO-ADDO AND HIS LIE LIE CAMPAIGN TEAM HAVE BALLS, THEY SHOULD COME OUT AND REFUTE THESE ALLEGATIONS. I DARE THEM TO COME OUT… I WILL REPEAT IT AGAIN, “IF GOLD (K4) ROT, WHAT WILL IRON (AKUFO-ADDO) DO”!!! NOTHING FOR THEM…

Humphrey Tettey Mensah (booker tee) htmensah@yahoo.com