Opinions of Wednesday, 5 November 2008

Columnist: Ato Kwamena Dadzie

The Outsider: Why Nduom won

It wasn’t exactly a debate. The three main presidential candidates (plus a three-time also run) didn’t exactly engage each other in a debate but they merely fielded questions from two veteran journalists on a wide array of issues ranging from why a certain engine has not been cranking as well as it should to whether Ghana should adopt nuclear energy. It was dreary at times (at some point, I felt the end couldn’t come soon enough) but there were exciting, humorous moments (which I thoroughly enjoyed).

There were just about two confrontations: first was Nana Akufo-Addo stating “the simple fact” that: “the contribution of manufacturing to the GDP in Ghana is not zero, it’s 10 percent...” This was after Prof. Mills had said – for the second time – that the contributions of the manufacturing sector to GDP “about which we are singing from the roof top is zero”. Then there was the moment when Dr. Edward Mahama of the PNC appeared to be questioning... Click here to read full article